Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) (31 page)

“Promises,” Parsons commented. “Those did our president’s predecessor a hell of a lot of good in L.A. a few years back.”

“There’s a damn big difference between shooting rockets at the president’s motorcade, while it’s sitting still, and sneaking a tank of nerve gas into the most heavily guarded building in D.C.” Bud took a breath, realizing he was letting Parsons get the best of him.

“Tank,” Parsons observed. “I saw the Bureau report on the damn thing. It’s smaller than a football.”

“And made of metal,” Bud pointed out.

“Even you gentlemen are going to have to go through metal detectors on January nineteenth,” Gonzales said. “Unless the president himself carries it in, it’s not getting in.”

“They could release it outside,” Parsons suggested. “Upwind.”

Gonzales shrugged. “There’ll be gas alarms galore. Plenty of warning, and plenty of—” It was the chief of staffs turn to look to Bud. “What does the Army call them?”

“MOPP suits,” Bud answered.

“Plenty of MOPP suits,” Gonzales continued, “for everyone.”

“An attack outside would be stupid,” Bud observed. “That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t try it, but it would fail. Period.”

“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Murphy said, repeating the mantra-like admonishment familiar to all in the House chamber. “The plain truth is that enough people are uncomfortable with the idea of McCaw possibly ending up as president—God forbid—that it just won’t fly. Whether you two want to admit it or not, there is a risk here. A real one where there usually isn’t, and that requires careful consideration.”

“Are you saying you want someone else to be odd man out?” Gonzales asked.

“Exactly,” Parsons answered.

“Someone more suited to the potential,” Murphy explained. “McCaw was, what, some sort of computer executive before taking over Energy? That’s not what the country needs if...”

Bud slid back on the couch. “This is really concerning you?”

“Bud,” Murphy began, tapping his own chest with a thick thumb, “I’m number three on the list of succession. I was elected. People voted for me. But I’m gonna be sitting right up there behind your boss next month. The vice president is gonna be right next to me. Pardon what comes next, but just about everyone else who can take over according to the Constitution are appointed schmucks. Normally, sure, McCaw wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. But this isn’t a normal time. People on the Hill want to fry Gordon Jones for what happened in L.A. last month, and they aren’t sure they trust promises of security.”

“It will be secure,” Gonzales said forcefully.

“Fine,” Murphy responded. “Then we’ll all walk away happy. But McCaw has got to go. Choose someone better suited to the ‘maybes,’ not the promises.”

“If someone doesn’t take care of this before too long there’re going to be public calls from some of our Republican friends for a change.” Parsons’s stomach rumbled loudly as the antacid began its fight with the remnants of the previous night’s revelry. “Some on our side, too. That can be damn embarrassing.” He pointed a long, tan finger at Gonzales. “You more than anyone should be tuned in to that. Earl Casey is going to have your ass if this blows up.”

“It doesn’t need to blow up,” Murphy countered. There was conciliation in his voice, but also direction.

Embarrassment
. Ellis knew all too well the ramifications of that. In a way he was the president’s point man, walking ahead of the chief executive through the election-year minefield. It was important the rest of the term, also, but now was the time when it most counted. People wouldn’t vote for a man whose own party fired a shot across his bow. No way. This wasn’t worth risking that.

“All right,” Ellis said. “I’ll talk to the president.”

“Soon,” Murphy prodded.

“This week,” Ellis promised.

“Make it someone everyone can accept,” Parsons directed.

Gonzales nodded.

Bud stood. “That does it, then. Crisis averted.”

Murphy and Parsons also rose to their feet and gathered their coats.

“Thanks for the hurry-up, Bud,” the speaker said, putting a hand on the NSA’s shoulder.

“Thanks for dropping in,” Bud said with a slight chuckle attached, then closed the door behind their visitors. He turned back to the chief of staff. His face was blank. “Parsons can be an ass.”

Gonzales quietly nodded. “Do you think there’s a reason to worry?”

“Worry?” Bud sat in the chair vacated by the speaker. It was still warm. “No. Concern, yes.”

“It’s a hell of a thought, you know,” Gonzales observed. “You know what kind of mayhem there’d be.”

“That’s why there’s an odd man out,” Bud reminded him.

“Still...” The chief of staff was quiet for a moment. “Do you think that’s what these NALF guys are thinking about?”

Bud half-shrugged before answering. “The Bureau thinks they have more nerve gas. And that car they found in the river puts them in the vicinity. They’re here for a reason. And I guess this is a good place to be if you want to do damage.”

Damage. That was a mild way of putting it. How many were dead in Los Angeles? Gonzales thought. The final body count was one thousand eight hundred and twenty-two. That was damage, all right. But killing just a fourth of that number—the right fourth—in this city could mean more than death. It could mean chaos. Or worse. “You know, they may have been right to bring this to us.”

Bud saw Gonzales’s eyes come up to meet his. “It’s not going to happen, Ellis.”

“Neither was Pearl Harbor,” Gonzales said in response.

TWENTY ONE

Give and Take

Montrose Road skirts the southern limits of Rockville, Maryland, running west-east between Interstate 270 and the Rockville Pike. Dr. John Conrad turned his Chevy Suburban east onto Montrose from the interstate in a driving rain, heading for home. That was a brand-new, five thousand-square-foot tri-level done in western red cedar. It wasn’t cheap, but his practice was good. As good as any orthopedic surgeon’s inside the beltway, the perfect place to do his kind of business. Bad backs and bum knees abounded, as did referrals. Tons of those. Enough that he had two associates working
for
him. Work weeks were four days long now, with Wednesday as a play day in the middle, and weekends sometimes ate up a Friday or a Monday. Usually a Monday. Sundays were just too short.

Life was good, the family was good. About the only thing not good was the damn road that the county never seemed to fix right. As usual the potholes, hidden under a glaze of rainwater, were assaulting his suspension and wearing the tires long before their time. Two letters already, and golf with a honcho from the roads department obviously hadn’t had the desired result.
Well, now they’re going to—

The motion his Suburban made this time wasn’t from a pothole. It lurched forward, pressing Conrad against his seat. He looked to the rearview to see a pair of headlights easing back, and a flashing turn signal as the car pulled to the shoulder.

“Son of a bitch!” Conrad swore, hitting his own signal. “The idiot doesn’t know his following distance!” A rear-ender. A
moving
rear-ender! At least the insurance company couldn’t lay any of this on him...if the fool had insurance. He stopped on the hard shoulder of the road, the idiot doing the same right behind, as a line of cars zipped by. Conrad popped his door and opened the umbrella through the crack, then walked to the rear of his Suburban to go through the rigmarole.

“Hey man, sorry,” Darian said, gesturing embarrassment as rain cascaded off the brim of his baseball cap.

Conrad gave the guy a look, and one for his buddy still in the car, and checked the bumper. “Oh, wonderful.”

Darian bent a bit to survey the damage, pointing with one hand and keeping the other in his coat pocket. To his rear the passenger door of the Volvo opened. That was the signal—no traffic from behind. “Oh, shit, down on the fender, too.”

“Where?” Conrad asked, following the outstretched finger. “I don’t see—”

The leather sap came down hard at the base of Conrad’s skull, but not too hard. Just enough to stun, as Darian had been taught by the brothers in Soledad. The doctor grunted loud and fell to all fours. By then Moises was up with his leader.

“Down!” Darian commanded, stomping on Conrad’s back with his boot and pushing his chest to the ground. “Get his hands.”

Moises put a knee in the small of the doctor’s back and pulled both arms behind. He wrapped a looped cord around the wrists and drew it tight, then wound the remaining length between the arms and tied it off. Next came the feet, and then the mouth, which was gagged by filling it with a wadded-up sock. “Ready.”

Darian looked back. No cars. To the front the large Suburban blocked the view and shrouded their actions. “Let’s go.”

They dragged the doctor to the rear of the Volvo, lifted him into the trunk, and slammed the lid shut. Darian then went back to the Suburban, to its interior, and took the doctor’s briefcase from the passenger seat, making sure to leave no prints for the cops to find. He was back behind the wheel of the Volvo a few seconds later.

“He’s moving around already,” Moises said.

“Don’t matter none.” Darian started the car and backed away from the Suburban, then pulled out onto Montrose and traveled a quarter-mile before there was space to hang a U-turn. They passed the doctor’s car going the other way and were back on the interstate, heading south, a minute after that.

*  *  *

“Knock knock,” Lou Hidalgo said as he rapped on the metal top of the cubicle walls that enclosed Art’s and Frankie’s work area. Art was the only occupant at the moment.

“Morning, Lou.” Art turned his chair and faced the A-SAC.

Hidalgo scratched at one ear. “I just thought I’d let you know that LAPD is scaling back their look for Barrish. There’s no sign of him or his family.”

“I wasn’t even sure they were that interested,” Art commented with mock wonder.

“Well, his lawyer and the guy paying his rent did get offed the day he and his family disappeared. I guess that makes one wonder.”

“It’s more than that, Lou.” Art was feeling left out, amputated from the investigation that had moved to the East Coast with the NALF.

Hidalgo nodded. “I just thought I’d update you before you leave.”

“Leave? Leave where?”

“You and Frankie are going to Washington to help find the NALF guys,” Hidalgo explained. “To provide a hometown outlook in case it’s needed.”

“When?”

“Christmas day,” Hidalgo answered with apology in his tone. “Sorry about the timing.”

“No problem,” Art lied. Anne was going to love this... No, she would understand. He knew better than to think otherwise.

“I’m sorry to pull you away from this end, but—”

“Don’t be,” Art interjected. “Gotta go with the smart money, and that’s on the NALF.”

“That it is,” Hidalgo concurred.

Art smiled to himself as the A-SAC walked away.
Smart money, eh?
Despite having said it, Art knew he wouldn’t take the bet.

*  *  *

Darian shoved the sock back in the doctor’s mouth and closed the trunk of the Volvo, surveying the empty parking lot and the street beyond. He handed the keys from Conrad’s pants pocket to Moises. “You got it all?”

“Got it,” Moises confirmed. “The key with the blue tab opens the back door. The alarm box is inside the door. I press four-four-four-seven, then ‘off to disarm it.”

“And rearm it when you leave,” Darian reminded him.

“Right. The patient files are in the billing office. Red tab key opens that. I pull the file, flip on the copy machine, and copy the page listing orthopedic implements.”

“Check it first against what he said,” Darian said, hitting the trunk lid with a balled fist and saying loudly, “’CAUSE IF HE WAS LYIN’ WE’RE GONNA FUCK UP HIS FAMILY.”

“Got it. Match it first. Then copy it, turn off the machine, put back the file, lock up, and head out...and rearm the alarm.”

“And wear the gloves,” Darian cautioned. “No prints.”

Moises held up the surgical-type gloves. “Got it.”

“Go.”

Darian watched his young fighter run at a brisk clip to the wall that separated the parking lot from the back of Dr. John Conrad’s suite of medical offices. He checked his watch as the Griggs kid rolled over the fence. Nine minutes later Moises reappeared over the wall with the information they needed.

“He told the truth,” Moises said, handing the paper to Darian.

The NALF leader pocketed the photocopy and opened the trunk. “You did good.” He reached in and pulled Conrad up by the hair, then slammed a fist into the side of his head to stun him. As he fell back Darian swung the edge of his hand hard across the doctor’s throat, crushing his windpipe. He grabbed the neck with a strong hand and pressed as the man struggled in vain for air. In two minutes he had passed out. Two minutes later Darian Brown released his grip.

They drove the body twenty miles west of the city and dumped it in a thicket by the road, then drove straight back to Baltimore. There was still much work ahead and it had been a long day. Sleep was the next order of business.

*  *  *

“Jim,” the president began, hesitating as the secretary of state waited patiently. “Jim, how would you like to be president?”

Secretary of State Jim Coventry smiled at the offer. “When do I start?”

“There’s one little catch, Jim,” Chief of Staff Ellis Gonzales said as his boss took a seat in one of the Oval Office’s wingbacks. “Everybody at the State of the Union has to end up dead.”

Coventry lost interest in the humorous beginning of the conversation. “Wait. Are you... I thought Raleigh McCaw was doing the deed again.”

“We have to make a change,” Gonzales said. “With all the weak knees over these New Africa nuts there’s some concern about Secretary McCaw’s suitability should something happen.”

“You were elected once, Jim,” the president observed. “You’ll put a lot of people at ease come the State of the Union.”

“Of course I’ll do it,” Coventry said. As if there would be any doubt. “But it’s going to raise some questions itself. The press will probably have me resigning by Monday after the address.”