Under Siege (55 page)

That would be Special Agent Thomas F. Hooper. Yocke made a note as Hooper spoke to General Land. they came in on a freighter last week. At least twenty of them, armed to the teeth, paid to commit suicide.”

“So there’s probably going to be more of this?” General Land said. “Yes,” Hooper told him. “Do your sources have any feel for their targets?” That was Jake Grafton speaking.

“Anywhere there are people,” Hooper replied. “The more people, the better for them.”

“Well, Captain?” General Land said.

“If we could just get everybody to stay home for a couple of days, sir, and use the time to search house-to-houseevery building, every store, every apartments couple of days would do it. If we shut down all the public transportation and forbid everyone to use their cars, we could do it.”

“FBI?”

Hooper pulled at his earlobe. “That’s my recommendation too, General.” “General Greer.”

Greer was the general in direct charge of the National Guard and army units, which had been integrated into one command. He considered for ten seconds. “That’s probably the only way, I think. We’ve got to find these people and keep crowds from congregating while we do it. Those are the priorities.”

“We’re only comVvoman Strader noted aloud.

Land glanced at her, then back to Greer and Hooper. “Okay. You’ve got two days to find these people. Nothing moves inside the beltway unless it’s a military or emergency vehicle. I want a concrete plan on how you’re going to do this on my desk in three hours.”

“General, I suggest we shut everything down at midikight,” Jake Grafton added. “Be a nightmare trying to do it and*eaother way.”

“Midnight it is,” said General Land. He didn’t get to be a far-was general by being indecisive. “That’ll give us eight burs to figure out how we’re going to get this unscrewed.”

Jack Yocke scribbled furiously, bitterly aware of the irony of his position. He was hearing the scoop of the decade only Wmse Jake Grafton had made him promise not to print anything.

Then he became aware that somehow he was no longer in the “circle of people. Apparently the group had moved, ost ten feet, no doubt because General Land had moved. Wherever the chairman was was going to be the center of the Yocke rejoined the conference. …t negotiation is key to resolving situations like-we need today without bloodshed,” Strader was saying, her I’m and businesslike. Lecturing to the anthropoids, c thought, and jotted the impression down. ,neral Land’s reply was inaudible. ‘ader’s voice carried. “Why haven’t you consulted with ‘BI crisis-response team? They’re expert at negotiating terrorists and criminals in hostage situations.” is time Yocke caught the reply. “This was not a rWill or a hostage situation, ma’am. These men were out I as many people as possible. This was an atrocity pure ample and the men who did it knew they were going to bu don’t know that!” know a war when I’m in one, madam. I I’m telling you that you don’t know what those men

days away from Christmas,” Congress because General Greer didn’t take the time to talk to Those men might be prisoners if General Greer had instead of charging in willy-nilly shooting everybody in sight.”

“Madam-was General Land began icily.

Strader chopped him off and bored in for the kill. “The aggressive behavior of your troops may be the reason those men shot all these civilians.”

“General Greer did exactly the right thing. These people didn’t want to tWk.” Und’s voice had a razor-sharp edge. “They were too busy chasing down unarmed men and women and slaughtering them like rabbits. They might have laid down their arms, it’s true, after they killed everyone in sight .

“…lives at stake here.”

“When are you goddamn dithering fools gonna figure out you can’t negotiate with people who don’t want to negotiate?” The general’s voice was a roar, the anger palpable. “Now I’ve listened to all of the free advice I can stomach. I’ve got better things to do than stand here and shoot the shit with some civilian! Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“I’m Congresswoman Strader. I’m on the presidential commission to-was

“You can do your investigation later. Not now! Not here!”

“You wouldn’t say that if I were a man! I’ve got a pass signed by-was

“Major, was the general barked, “get her political ass out of MY face, right fucking now.”

“Yes, sir!”

Infuriated, her face the color of a scalded lobster, Sam Strader was firmly escorted away. When Jack Yocke had the last of it in his notebook in his private shorthand, he looked up, straight into the bemused face of Toad Tarkington.

“What we got here,” Tarkington said, “is a total entertainment package. Write that down too.”

“Tarkington!” It was Grafton calling. Yocke followed the young naval officer. “Let’s go,” Jake Grafton said. He began trotting toward

the military sedan. “Someone just shot the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.”

“Is he dead?”

“Apparently.”

Henry Charon parked the car a block from the New Hampshire Avenue apartment and walked. The streetlights were on and the sky was dark. Raindrops were beginning to splatter on the pavement and poing on the car roofs.

One of the cars near the apartment house was the green VW hug wearing its trendy bumper stickers. Ah yes, the sweater lady.

He paused in the entryway and used his key on the mailbox. As he suspected it contained the usual circulars and junk mail addressed to “Occupant.” He put them in his pocket. He didn’t want mail to accumulate in the box because very soon now someone would look through that little window. An FBI agent or police officer, or maybe a soldier, but someone. Someone hunting him.

He looked again up and down the street. The rain was getting heavier. Perhaps setting in for the night.

The cold felt good. When you live in the wild long enough you get used to the cold. You learn to endure it and never feel it. It’s a part of everything and you fit in and adapt or you perish.

Henry Charon was good at that. He had learned to adapt. Becoming a part of his surroundings was his whole life.

So be stood for a few more seconds and let the cold and dampness seep over him as he listened to the tinny sound of the raindrops striking the cars.

Then he inserted his key in the doorlock and went inside. The door to the first apartment was ajar and he could hear television. This was where the apartment manager lived, the sweater lady, Grisella Clifton.

Wouldn’t hurt to be seen for a moment. He paused at the door and raised his hand to knock.

She was seated in a stuffed chair in front of the television with a cat on her lap. Charon pushed the door open a few more inches. Now he could see the television. And hear the words:

an artist’s conception of the man who shot and 7 wounded Attorney General Gideon Cohen yesterday at the Capitol in what may have been an attempt on the life of VicePresident Dan Quayle. This man is armed and very dangerous. If you see this man, do not attempt to apprehend or approach him, but notify the police immediately. At the bottom of the screen you will see a number to call if you think you might have seen this man. Please write this number down. And take a good, careful look.”

On the screen was an artist’s line drawing. Charon stared. Yes, the artist had got him. Probably from that woman he had met in the lobby as he was leaving the building. Who would have thought she had gotten that good a look? Damn!

The cat saw him and tensed. Grisella Clifton turned and caught sight of him. “Oh! You startled me, Mr. Tackett.”

“Sorry. I was about to knock.”

She rose from her chair and turned toward him. The cat scurried away. “I’m so sorry. I guess I heard the outside door open, but I was just so engrossed in this … this. .

She turned back toward the television. The artist’s effort was still on the screen. She looked from the television to Charon, then back to the television. He saw it in her face.

She drew her breath in sharply and her hand came up to cover her mouth. Her eyes widened. “Oh! My God!” He stood there trying to decide what to do. “You’re him! You tried to kill VicePresident Quayle!”

“No, I didn’t,” Henry Charon said automatically, slightly irritated. He had been shooting at Gideon Cohen! And hit him too. That was one hell of a fine shot!

He saw her chest expand as she sucked in air. She was going to scream.

Without conscious thought he had balanced his weight on the balls of his feet, so now he pushed out toward her in one fluid motion with his hands outstretched.

Thanos Liarakos didn’t know what made him turn his head to the right, but he did. She was sitting on a park bench there amid the naked black trees, the streetlight limning her. He sat behind the wheel of the car staring, uncertain, yet at some level deep down very, very sure.

The man in the car behind laid on his horn.

Liarakos took his foot off the brake and let the car move. He went around the block looking for a parking place. Nothing. Not a single vacant spot. He jammed the gas pedal down and shot down the next street. Every spot full!

Around the corner, looking, the frustration welling rapidly.

He began to swear. The goddamn city, the goddamn traffic engineers and the goddamn planning board that let them remodel these goddamn row houses without driveways and garages-he cussed them all while he thought about Elizabeth.

There, a fireplug. He pulled in beside it and killed the engine. He hit the automatic door lock button on the door and was off and running even as the door slammed shut.

Elizabeth! Sitting out in the rain on a dismal cold night like this. Oh God-if there is a god up there-how could you do this to gentle Elizabeth? Why?

He jogged the last block and darted into the street to see around a tree that was in the way. In the proem he was almost run over, but he dodged the delivery van and dashed across the traffic. Another Christian soul laid on his horn and squealed his brakes.

Liarakos paid no attention. On the edge of the park he halted and looked again.

She was still sitting there. Hadn’t moved.

He walked forward.

As he passed a bench, still sevent ve feet from her, a

. y-fi derelict huddled there spoke: “Hey man, I hate to ask this, but have you got any loose change you could…”

She wasn’t looking around. She was sitting there staring downward, apparently oblivious of the cold and the cutting wind and the steady rain that was already starting to soak Liarakos.

“Some loose change would help, man.” The derelict was following him. He was aware of it but didn’t bother to look behind him.

Her hands were in her coat pockets. The good coat she had worn to the clinic was gone, and in its place she wore a thin, faded cotton thing that looked as if it wouldn’t warm a rabbit. Her hair was a sodden, dripping mess. She didn’t look up.

“Elizabeth.”

She continued to stare at the ground. He squatted and looked up into her face. It was her all right. The corners of her lips were tilted up in a wan little smile.

Her eyes moved to his face, but they looked without recognition.

“Man, it’s a damn cold night and a cup of coffee would do for me, you know? I had some troubles in my life and some of them wasn’t my fauh. How about some Christian charity for a poor ol” nigger. A little change wouldn’t be much to you, but to me. . He found his wallet and extracted a bill without taking his eyes off Elizabeth. He passed the bill back. “God, this is a twenty! Are you-was

“Take it. And leave.”

“Thanks, mister.”

Her face had a glow about it. Aww, fuck! She was as high as a flag on the Fourth of July.

“I tell you, man,” the derelict said, ““cause you been real generous with me. She’s in big trouble. She’s strung out real bad, man.”

“Please leave.”

“Yeah.”

The footsteps shuffled away.

He reached out and caressed her face, pressed her hand between his.

The rain continued to fall. She sat with her thin, frozen smile amid the pigeon shit on the park bench among the glistening black trees, staring at nothing at all.

“So what can you tell me?” Jake Grafton asked the FBI lab man.

“Not much,” the investigator said, scratching his head. They were standing in the room from which the assassin had shot Chief Justice Longstreet. The rifle lay on the table. Everything in sight was covered by the fine dark grit of fingerprint dust.

“Apparently no fresh prints. We got a bunch, but I doubt that our guy left any. Be a fluke if he did.”

“Where did the bullet hit the Chief Justice?”

“About one inch above the left ear. Killed instantly. Haven’t got the bullet yet. It went through the victim, through the upholstery and the sheet metal and buried itself in the asphalt of the street. Rifle is a thirtyought-six, same caliber and make as the one that fired the bullet into the attorney general. Same brand of scope, and I suspect, the same brand of gun oil and so forth.”

The floor of the room in which they were standing had a fine layer of dust on it, and it showed tracks, a lot of tracks, so many in fact that the individual footprints ran together.

“Did you guys make all these?” Jake asked gloomily.

“No, as a matter of fact. Sort of curious, but the guy who did the shooting seemed to come into the room, go to the window, and stay there. He made some footprints, but not many, considering. He didn’t have nervous feet.”

“Nervous feet,” Jake repeated.

The lab man seemed to be searching for words. “He wasn’t real excited, if you know what I mean.”

“A pro,” Toad Tarkington prompted.

‘Maybe,” the FBI agent said. “Maybe not. But he’s a cool

The military curfew was announced at seven p.m., to take effect at midnight. Anyone on the streets between the hours of midnight and seven a.m. would be subject to arrest and prosecution by military tribunal for failure to obey emergency orders. Anyone on the streets in a vehicle between the hours of seven a.m. and midnight would also be subject to arrest. This curfew would be in effect for forty-eight hours, unless it was ended sooner or extended. The order was news from coast to coast along with the murder of Supreme Court Chief Justice Harlan Longstreet and the subway massacre. The death toll continued to mount as two of the wounded succumbed to their injuries. One of them was a pregnant woman.