Terror in D.C. (7 page)

“Your new telescope?”

“That's exactly right. It's a real beauty and I can't wait to try it. I'll be in Wells Church doing some stargazing, so I think Mr. Lester ought to get his best people to meet the foreign visitors. I'd do it myself, but I hate to be bothered when I'm tracking.”

“Tracking?”

“Asteroids. There's a minor shower expected near Arcturus. You might tell Mr. Lester about my new telescope. He'll like it—it's red.”

“Red? How nice. I will pass your message along the moment he comes in, Mr. James. Happy stargazing.”

When Hawker hung up the phone, he carried the telescope back to his rental car.

Chances were that the terrorists wouldn't hit until the next night, Friday night. But Hawker knew there was an outside possibility they might strike early Friday morning, between midnight and dawn.

Enough innocent people around D.C. had been murdered by these lunatics. That's exactly why Hawker had told the CIA traffic operator that Lester Rehfuss should have his men out in force. Wells Church wasn't a big suburb, but it was big enough, and Hawker wasn't about to take the chance of missing the bombers.

One man alone couldn't watch all the streets in the area.

Hawker tried to put himself in the place of the terrorists. Before they selected a house and planted their bombs, they would certainly drive around the area first to make sure the place wasn't crawling with cops.

It didn't take him long to find a centralized area that would be a likely place to pick up the scent of the bombers. It was in the center of town, a park square with trees, a ball diamond, and a bandstand.

It would be unlikely they would make a reconnaissance drive through Wells Church without circling the park.

Hawker stopped at a take-out and bought a half-dozen roast beef and ham sandwiches, two Thermoses of coffee, another Thermos of iced tea, and some toilet tissue.

At dusk he parked on the east side of the park. He figured the terrorists would probably be coming from D.C., so the east side of the park would be the most likely place to see them.

How he would recognize them as terrorists, Hawker didn't know. It seemed unlikely they would wear black hats or Simon Legree mustaches.

But he had to try.

The vigilante set up his telescope in an open area in plain sight. He placed the sandwiches and the coffee beneath the bench, and then he sat and watched darkness take the suburb.

When Venus materialized above the orange afterglow, Hawker focused the telescope on it, then on the waxing moon.

During the next twelve hours he was approached twice by city cops, nine times by homosexuals, and once by a woman who was not a prostitute.

He found it troubling that homosexuals had traveled so much farther from the closet than liberated women.

No matter who he was approached by, Hawker did the same routine each time: he clamped his eye to the eyepiece of the telescope and began to mutter to himself like Fred MacMurray just before he invented Flubber.

The homosexuals were intrigued, the woman was bored, and the cops were indifferent.

Eggheads with telescopes didn't cause many problems.

That's just what Hawker wanted them to think.

He left the telescope three times to follow different vehicles that he thought might contain terrorists: two trucks and a van.

Each time, he was wrong.

He returned to his apartment at dawn, dead tired, his head still spinning from all the coffee he had drunk, hoping like hell the bombers hadn't slipped past him.…

nine

The next night Hawker was back at the park with his telescope. On the street he noticed a marked increase in the number of unmarked government cars and square-jawed men in sunglasses.

Rehfuss had gotten Hawker's message.

The CIA was out in force—and the vigilante hoped like hell he was the only one to notice.

More than once, CIA types gave Hawker steely looks as they passed him by. But they never stopped. They had their orders: leave the guy with the red telescope alone.

Hawker was relieved.

If there was one organization in the world he didn't want after him, it was the CIA.

The hours ticked by. He ate more sandwiches, drank more coffee. The telescope was superb. Between watching cars, he got breathtaking views of the moons of Jupiter and the Great Nebulae of Orion.

The beauty of the galaxy dwarfed the madness of tiny Earth, and relegated terrorist baby-killers to the level of primal slime.

Hawker looked forward to getting his hands on the bastards.

At about 3
A.M.
he noticed the fourth suspicious vehicle of the evening. It was a square-backed truck, a laundry truck marked
DONGEL'S LAUNDRY/WE DELIVER
.

Hawker tried to remember a laundry truck that didn't read “We
pick up
and deliver.”

How could a laundry truck deliver if it didn't pick up?

It was a small thing. But, at 3
A.M.
, the small things stood out. Knowing perfectly well that he was getting a little punch-drunk from lack of sleep and too much coffee, Hawker decided to follow the laundry truck.

What could it hurt?

There were CIA men everywhere.

Besides, he hadn't followed a suspicious vehicle for more than two hours and he was getting bored standing in the park.

Hawker packed the telescope neatly away. He got into his rental Ford and went out into the empty streets, several blocks behind the laundry truck.

He did not turn on his headlights.

As he drove he noticed with a chill that as the truck moved into a residential area, it, too, switched out its lights. The truck was painted brown, so all Hawker could see was the occasional moon-flash of chrome.

He pressed the accelerator down.

The terrorists had to be in the laundry truck.

James Hawker was determined to get to them before the CIA did.…

ten

The vigilante tried to stay well behind them, afraid the terrorists might sense a trap and flee before he had a chance to get them in his sights.

The obvious danger was that he would stay too far back and lose them.

That's exactly what happened.

Half a mile ahead, he saw the laundry truck's brake lights flare briefly before turning left down a residential street. The street was a cavern of big trees. By the time Hawker got there, the truck had disappeared in the darkness.

Hawker gunned the Ford. At the first cross street, he skidded to a stop. He looked both ways. No laundry truck. He spun the wheels, sprinting to the next stop sign. Still no truck.

They had disappeared.

Hawker drove three more blocks, turned left, and switched on his lights. He pulled out the map he had gotten at the telephone company. The only dead-end streets were two blocks over, by the golf course.

The terrorists could have turned anywhere, gone anywhere.

Damn it!

The only hope he had was that the men in the laundry truck would double back on their reconnaissance route, and he could pick them up at the city park again.

If that failed he would have to track down one of the CIA people and tell them to put out an all-points on the laundry truck. More innocent people weren't going to be bombed just because of his stupidity!

Hawker shoved the car in gear and headed away. He forced himself to drive at a reasonable speed. He retraced his route around the block, cut down a strange street that should have brought him out on Jefferson, the main road.

Halfway down the block sat the laundry truck. It was parked at the curb, lights out.

Hawker caught himself just before he jammed on the brakes.

He drove right on past the truck at an even speed. He touched his turn signal at the stop sign and headed out toward the main road.

It was 3:34
A.M.

He drove four blocks, shut out his lights, turned around in a driveway, and backtracked another two blocks before he pulled over and got out of the car.

Hawker switched out the dome light before he opened the back door. He pulled up the seat and removed his black wool sweater, his Navy watch cap, his canvas satchel, which he wore around his chest like a bandolier, and his thin black leather gloves. He pulled on the sweater, then touched his calf to make sure the Randall Model 18 Attack/Survival knife was still in place, strapped to his leg.

It was.

Then he buckled on the Colt .44 magnum in its shoulder holster, and hefted the Colt Commando automatic rifle. The Colt was a chopped-down version of the M16. It still fired the 5.56-mm rounds, but the stock slid in so that it was only twenty-eight inches long. It carried a twenty-round detachable box-type clip, and it had an effective killing range of two hundred meters. He had plenty of fresh clips taped back-to-back, for easy loading.

Hawker had used the Colt Commando before, and he trusted it.

The only customizing he had done was to add a Star-Tron Mark 303A night-vision scope. The Star-Tron absorbed all peripheral light—light from the stars, the moon, the streetlights—and regenerated it so that it made objects seen through the scope appear as bright as if they were being seen at high noon on a cloudy day.

Hawker switched on the Star-Tron and scanned the area ahead of him.

Through the red glow of the scope, he saw nothing but a stray cat stalking something near a garbage can. He didn't expect to see the terrorists—the laundry truck was still two blocks away, around the corner.

Hawker closed the door of the Ford gently and jogged across the street into the shadows of the sidewalk. The houses here were big and substantial: two-story brick or clapboard executive strongholds with vast lawns mowed like golf greens. Halfway down the block, Hawker cut through one of the yards to the back. He planned to approach the laundry truck from the rear of the nearest house.

Fences divided the yards, and Hawker climbed the front section of fence and slid down the other side. In the enclosed yard was a pool, a bonsai-style rock garden, and a barbecue grill. He climbed over the back section of fence to the yard of the next house. It had a pool, a tennis court, and a hot tub.

Hawker reflected that it was no wonder there were so many poor people in America—the bureaucrats got paid too much.

He shouldn't have wasted the time in reflection.

The yard had something else besides a pool and a hot tub.

Hawker heard the low growl before he saw the dog coming at him—dogs coming. Two German shepherds, not one. Hawker vaulted over the next fence as their teeth clicked at his ankle.

The vigilante sat on the ground breathing heavily. From the other síde of the fence the dogs yammered at him. He expected lights to start blinking on all over the neighborhood.

They didn't, though. It was 3:46
A.M.
by the pale glow of his Seiko. Wells Church was deafened by sleep.

Hawker stood. Before him was a rambling ranch-style house on a large chunk of lawn. Trees grew on both sides of the house, and there was no fence. If he had to pick a house in this neighborhood to bomb, it would be this one. Easy access and plenty of cover.

Through the trees the vigilante could see the outline of the laundry truck.

Apparently the terrorists felt the same way about the house.

They had chosen it as their target for the night.

Hawker lifted the Colt Commando and had a look through the Star-Tron. In the backyard was a swing set, a jungle gym, and a cement basketball court.

Judging from the varieties of playground equipment, Hawker guessed that at least two kids were asleep inside the house, possibly more.

His hands tightened on the automatic rifle as he scanned the rest of the area.

He stopped abruptly. He could see a man creeping along the yard near the bushes. The man's face seemed to be horribly disfigured, but then Hawker realized he was wearing a stocking tied over his head.

He dragged some kind of knapsack along beside him.

It would be a bomb, of course. A satchel bomb? Perhaps a variation of a satchel bomb.

Hawker brought the glowing red cross hairs of the Star-Tron to bear on the man's temple. He held the sight there for a moment, then lowered the rifle.

If he shot now he would spook the rest of the terrorists. Hawker touched the safety tang to make sure it was switched to full automatic, then he slid along the shadows of a high copse. When he was about fifteen yards from the man, he stopped again. The terrorist had removed the bomb from the knapsack, and now was affixing it beneath one of the windows, a bedroom window, probably.

Hawker placed the Colt Commando on the ground. He pulled up his pant cuff, unsnapped the handmade scabbard, and drew the Randall knife. The weight of the stainless-steel hilt felt good in his gloved hand. He moved slowly, quietly across the grass toward the man in the stocking mask. When Hawker was close enough to smell the sour-sweat odor of the man's body, he threw his arm around the terrorist's throat and touched the point of the Randall to his ear.

The man struggled briefly.

“Freeze
, asshole. Not a sound,” Hawker whispered into his ear. “Say one word, and I'll use this knife to scramble what few brains you have.”

The man stopped struggling and went stiff with fear. “Please, don't hurt me,” he said, his bad English made harder to understand by the stocking over his head. “There is no need to hurt me. I have done nothing.”

“Let me guess, greaseball—you're a desert Santa Claus, way early for Christmas.” Hawker shook him roughly. “Don't lie to me, you scum. What time is that bomb set to go off?”

“Bomb? I know of no bomb—”

Hawker clamped his hand over the man's mouth and put just enough pressure on the knife so it slid about a quarter inch into the man's ear canal. Blood began to run in a shiny black river down the side of the terrorist's neck. The man's scream was muffled.

Hawker waited a few seconds, then removed his hand. “Let's call that a friendly warning, penis nose. With me, you get only one friendly warning. Then I get unfriendly. Real unfriendly.”