Sweepers (52 page)

She nodded. “I can’t believe there are police after us. I didn’t do anything I don’t do routinely.”

“That’s when you were persona grata,” he replied, keeping an eye out into the corridor through the glass door.

“Now you’re keeping bad company. Sure you want to keep going with this, Counselor?”

“I’m sure,” she said with a small smile. “I think.”

Right. Remember that the forces of truth, justice, and the American way are all behind you. Way behind you.

Let’s do it.”

He took one more look through the door for amber strobe lights, then pushed the door open. They stepped out into the fourth corridor, which was darker than usual. In the perpetual effort to save money, the Pentagon building’s management turned out half the overhead lights in the corridors on weekends. Trying to act normally, they walked together the final eighty feet to the small doorway at the end of the corridor.

The guard table by the door was unoccupied, but they could see a red sign chained across the door.

“Definitely alarmed,” she said, keeping her voice down as they approached the door. “Won’t that bring the reaction force?”

“Probably. We can only hope they come from the inside and that no one thinks to simply step out of the South Parking entrance to see what’s happening back on the heliport.

Wish I had a helo out there.”

“You’re an admiral. Can’t you just call one?”

“Remember the guy in Henry the Fifth who claims that he can call forth spirits from the vasty deep? And the other guy says, yeah, but do they come when you call them?

That’s me. I used to think I could, though,” he said.

The chain across the door was there to hold the sign, not to secure the door. The door itself had a fire-escape bar on the inside, which meant they could get out, although not back in once that door closed. Two black boxes with shielded wiring were positioned on either side of the top left crack between the door and the doorjam. There was also an amber strobe light mounted ten feet high in the ceiling and it, too, was wired to the black box.

“Definitely alarmed,” he said. “Okay. Once outside, we turn left and walk quickly but normally toward South Parking. If someone stops us, we did see a man in civilian clothes headed for the River Entrance.”

“He went thataway, Sheriff?”

“Right. Unless they’re specifically looking for us, my admiral’s uniform may do the trick. Ready?”

“I guess,” she said, adjusting her shoes. She was wishing she could see through that door.

He stepped forward, unhooked the chained sign, and then pushed the bar.

Karen expected an audible alarm, but the only thing that happened was that the amber light began to flash over their heads. They went out through the door, pushed it shut, walked quickly down the steps to the heliport area, and turned left for South Parking. Traffic out on Washington Boulevard whizzed past just beyond the heliport. The bright sunlight was almost blinding.

They headed down a sidewalk right alongside the building and made it almost to the edge of the heliport before two armed guards came around the comer of the building.

“Good, they’re Marines,” Sherman murmured.

Karen couldn’t quite figure out why that was good, but then she began to understand when the Marines trotted up to them, assumed rigid positions of attention, and saluted in unison. Sherman returned the salute casually and asked what the problem was.

“Intruder alarm, heliport door, sir,” the smaller one said.

“I saw a guy come out of there as we were walking past,” Sherman replied, pointing down toward the other end of the building. “Civilian?

With a briefcase? Seemed to be in a hurry?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, sir!” they shouted in unison as they took off down the side of the building, unslinging submachine weapons.

“Let’s go, Counselor,” Sherman said, looking over his oulder. “That’ll be good for about another ninety seconds we’re lucky.

They walked rapidly to the comer of the building and then stepped across the empty perimeter street toward their cars. Karen could see other guards standing around the South Parking entrance doors, one of whom was using a radio. They made it to their cars, and Karen slipped into the Mercedes while the admiral opened the door to his car. She reached down to finger a pebble out of her right shoe, and when she straightened back up, the cars were surrounded by armed guards. A huge man in a uniform she didn’t recognize was gesturing for her to get out of the car. He was emphasizing his, command with the barrel of his gun. She rolled the window down, keeping her hands in sight.

“Get out of the car, please, Commander,” the guard said.

Two other guards were between her car and Sherman’s, and she could see Sherman getting out of his car. She did the same, and they walked her around to the back of Sherman’s car. Three Army majors who had been about to leave for the day were watching in amazement from the next row of cars. Karen was grateful not to see the two Marines they had encountered along the side of the building.

A Marine captain walked up to the group of guards and saluted Sherman.

“Opnav security, Sir. Sir did you just come through the heliport door?”

“Yes, I did. We did.”

“That’s an alarmed door, Admiral,” the captain said in a tone of voice that clearly indicated he was pointing out the obvious. “May I see your identification, please, Sir?”

“Sure,” Sherman said, reaching for his wallet. And then he paused for a second and looked over at Karen. She felt a cold wave of dismay. He had cut up his ID card up there at the DCNO’s office. He fished out his wallet, looked inside, and then shrugged his shoulders. “Well, Captain, I seemed to have misplaced it.”

“I can identify this officer,” Karen said.

“May I see your ID card, then, Commander?” Which is when she realized she didn’t have an ID card, either.

“Uh“‘was all she could manage to say.

“Yes, ma’am,” the Marine said in a gotcha tone of voice.

“Why don’t we all go back to Opnav Security and straighten this thing out? Admiral Sherman, this way, please, Sir. I I They know who we are, Karen realized with a sinking feeling. Train, we need you.

Train was blind, again. He had been looking directly into that lens, his eyes wide open when the retinal flash exploded down his optic nerves. He was only vaguely aware of a sharp sting in his left arm. He tried to think of what to do next, but his brain was just idling’quietly in place. He realized that he was still standing, leaning against the wall in that hallway, but that was about the sumof it. There were still two intense purple suns pinwheeling in his eyes. Seen those puppies before.

And then a wave of something else took over, a warm, almost-comforting tide of sleep washing over his brain, diminishing those purple suns, filtering all that bright light, causing his knees to buckle, and then he was going down like a stunned ox, his right hip and elbow hitting the plywood, but no big deal, tuck and roll with the best of ‘em, so nice to rest, so very nice just to sleep a little while. He thought he heard a voice say something about getting his arms.

Karen was starting to get angry. They had been cooped up in this small room for nearly three hours since their apprehension in the parking lot.

The Marines had escorted them up to Opnav Security on the-fourth floor, given them a perfunctory airport-style search for weapons with a magnetic wand, and then deposited them in this office without another word. The room was about fifteen feet square, with a small table and four chairs in the middle. The door to the main operations area of the security office had a translucent glass panel, and they could see people moving around out there but could not hear what they were saying.

The walk through the Pentagon had been embarrassing, as it must have been obvious to anyone passing them in the main hallways that they were under police escort of some kind, even with only four guards. The Marine captain had accompanied them as far as the security office, but then he had disappeared. A policewoman escorted Karen to the bathroom the one time she had asked, but there had been no other contact. At one point, Karen started to ask Sherman how long this would go on, but he had put his fingers to his lips and pointed to the ceiling. She automatically looked up. There was nothing up there but a fluorescent light fixture.

And then she understood. The room was probably bugged. She had nodded and then made herself as comfortable as she could while they waited.

But three hours? She was ready to go bang. on that door and demand something, although she wasn’t sure what. The only actual crime they had committed was to breach the security door by the heliport. Okay, so sue us, or give us a building traffic ticket, or whatever. Carpenter and company had to be behind this somehow, but for the life of her, she could not understand why. And she was worried about Train. She didn’t want to think about that prospect. She looked at her watch for the hundredth time. Sherman gave her a wry smile when he saw her do that. He motioned for her to pull her chair around so that she was sitting next to him. Then he began to print invisible letters on the table with his finger.

“There’s a point to this,” he scrawled.

“What point?”

“Something else is happening. We are being held out of the way.”

She nodded, and then thought about Train going to Cherry Hill. She reminded the admiral of this fact.

“Going to find Jack?” He traced the question, his eyes alarmed.

“Yes.”

“To arrest him?”

“No. To bring him back. Train feels Jack is in danger.”

Sherman got up then and began to pace around the table.

She watched him while he considered the possibilities. Then she saw an idea come over his face. He pointed up at the ceiling and mimed that there was somebody listening hard somewhere, Then he started talking to the ceiling.

“Damn it, I’m getting tired of this,” he announced.

“Don’t these people realize that von Rensel is out there right now? That he’s probably going to shoot Jack as soon as he finds him?” His voice startled her as much as what he had just said. But he was motioning for her to play along.

Quick, what to say? she thought.. “You’re right, Admiral. He’s out of control,” she said.

He was nodding vigorously. “If they’d let us out of here, maybe we could stop that. But they’re probably too dumb to do that. I hope it’s not too late.”

“Von Rensel’s more than just out of control,” Sherman said, looking up again at the ceiling and the presumed microphone. “He’s going to’go public when he’s finished with Jack. Some people in this building are going to be pretty embarrassed if he does. He’s much too close to those Fairfax cops. You know NIS. They’ll just screw it up.”

They went on like this for a few minutes, then subsided into silence.

Twenty minutes later, the door was being unlocked and the Marine captain was back.

“Apologize for the long delay, Admiral, Commander.

We’ve had some trouble verifying your identity. Saturday. and all that.

But you are free to go now, sir. Commander, next time don’t let the admiral here go busting through security doors. Use the regular entrances, okay, ma’am? And you need to get that ID card problem squared away.”

Karen just stared at him, but he maintained an entirely sincere expression in the face of her obvious disbelief. She was half-expecting Sherman to go through a “how dare you” routine, but he was touching her elbow. “Let’s go,” he said urgently.

The admiral was in a hurry. Suddenly so was she. They needed to get down to Aquia. But more than that, they needed to get to a car phone. A single Marine was detailed to escort them back out of the building, since it was illegal for them to be in the Pentagon without ID cards.

Out in the parking lot, Karen called Hiroshi from the Mercedes while Sherman stood by her door.

“Hiroshi, this is Commander Lawrence. Is Train back?”

“Not back yet. No calls.”

“And he’s in my Explorer?”

“Yes, your car.”

She thanked him, hung up, and looked at her watch. A little after four.

There were only about thirty cars left in South Parking. The sun was starting to set behind the Arlington Annex buildings overlooking the national cemetery.

The dark band of an approaching weather front lurked in the west.

“Nothing?” Sherman was asking.

“Not a word. No calls. He should have been back by now.

“He take your car?”

I”Yes.’ I

“Call your car phone. See if he’s there.”

Why didn’t I think of that? she fumed, and punched in the number for the Explorer.

One ring, two rings, a pickup, and then the voice: Hello, Commander.

She almost dropped the phone when she heard his voice again. She mouthed the name Galantz at Sherman, her throat too dry to speak. Sherman reached for the phone.

“What do you want, Galantz?” he shouted into the phone.

Your dripping bloody spine on my kitchen table, the voice said. If you had one.

“Where’s Jack?-” Sherman said, his voice not quite so forceful. Karen felt an icy fist grip her insides. If Galantz was in her car, then where the hell was Train?

Jack’s with me. Want to see young Jack, do you, Aqmiral?

“Let him go, Galantz.”

Let him go? He’s here of his own free will. Although that might change, of course.

“Let him go, Galantz. You’ve done enough damage.”

Nowhere near enough damage. But I will. You want Jack?

You come to where von Rensel went. Tonight. Come alone.

No helper bees. Let’s say about nine. That suit your busy calendar? We can finish this tonight. Just you and me. But remember, come alone. Or we just keep playing.

Sherman swallowed as the phone hissed at him. He handed the phone back through her window.

“He’s offering to trade Jack for me, from the sounds of it. Wants me to come to wherever von Rensel was going this afternoon. Says we can finish this tonight.”

“Damn!” she exclaimed. “We’ve got to tell Mcnair. We need-“

“No. I have to go alone.”

“That’s crazy, Admiral. I’m sorry, but you’re no match for this guy.”