Hawker took the man in the middle first, dove and rolled, then cut down the man closest to him, then the man on the far left.
The sudden silence was eerie. They were dead. All of them, dead.
Hawker got to his feet breathing heavily. How many rounds had he used? Four, maybe five? He had at least one left, but it didn’t matter. He had made it.
He swung open the gate to the brick house and stepped up onto the porch. Just as he was about to reach for the doorknob, the door slammed open. Hawker drew up the Colt, but stopped just in time.
It was another woman carrying a bag of groceries.
“Don’t the ladies in this town have anything better to do than shop?” Hawker smiled as he moved to step by her.
As he did, the woman dropped the grocery bag. Hawker watched in disbelief as a gun materialized in her hand far too quickly for him to react.
The woman shot him once, in the left side of the chest.
James Hawker backpedaled into the railing and somersaulted backward into the street, thinking of nothing but the terrible pain in his heart.…
three
“You’re dead, Hawker. Too bad. So tell me, is there really a heaven? Or just a hell?”
James Hawker opened his eyes slowly. Looming above him was a tall, lanky man with thin blond hair and a craggy, Wisconsin smile. He wore a black tie, a baggy gray suit, and a white shirt.
The vigilante got slowly to his Feet, his breath whistling through his teeth at the electric pain that still Ping-Ponged between his brain and his toes.
“Jesus Christ, Rehfuss.” He grimaced. “You told me getting shot by one of those laser beams hurt, but you didn’t say it was like getting hit by a flame thrower.”
Lester Rehfuss, department director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Small Arms Training Division, added a patronizing flair as he brushed the dust from Hawker’s sweater. “I told you we’d made it as close to an actual firefight situation as possible, and that means a man has to pay dearly for any mistakes he makes. Let’s face it, Hawker, you made a mistake. Never trust old ladies with shopping bags.”
Hawker ripped the aluminum-tinted goggles from his face in disgust. The goggles protected his eyes from the low-intensity laser beams the computer-controlled mannequins fired. “Damn it,” he said, “I almost made it.”
The smile left the CIA man’s face. “Almost made it? Is that supposed to impress me? The last time the CIA almost made it, we got our asses chewed good for printing a little manual in Spanish that had the audacity to tell Nicaraguan rebels how to eliminate the Commie goons who have taken over their country. You still don’t get it, do you, Hawker? In this business, we can’t afford even the tiniest mistake. ‘Almost’ isn’t good enough—not because of what our enemies will do, but because of how our own news media will tear us to bits. Every time we screw up, the Dan Rathers and the Barbara Walters scream and whine and condemn until the Congress is forced to pull our leash just a little tighter. And if it gets much tighter, friend, we might as well trade our badges in for Boy Scout manuals.”
Hawker held his chest and rolled his head experimentally. “I don’t doubt it, Lester, but I’m in no mood for lectures. Besides, I’m out of the picture now. You people invited me in to give me a … what did you call it? Yeah, a screen test. Well, I just blew the screen test. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll just turn in my temporary security pass and head on back to my hotel. I think maybe soaking in a hot tub for three or four hours may make me feel well enough to get on a plane back to Florida.”
“Just like that? What about the people who pulled so many strings to get you this far?”
“You said it was a pass-or-fail test.”
“That’s right.”
“And one of your motorized hit ladies has just turned me into a statistic. A clean kill if I ever saw one.”
“Nice back somersault you did too. Were you ever a gymnast?”
“Just full of jokes, aren’t you?” Hawker began to dust off his jeans, then stopped suddenly. “Hey, wait a minute—why are you stalling? You don’t have to kill me now, do you? I mean, I came in here to your secret training installation and you showed me around, but now I’ve messed up the routine by failing your little test. What do you people do with outsiders who’ve seen too much?”
“Aside from poke their eyes out with hot sticks, you mean?”
“Come on, Lester, it’s a legitimate question.”
“Then I’ll give you a legitimate answer—but let’s wait until after your evaluation.”
Hawker looked at him with suspicion. “Why is it this is the first I’ve heard of any kind of evaluation?”
Lester Rehfuss smiled. “Don’t you read the papers? It’s because the CIA is just plain sneaky.”
Hawker shrugged and picked up the Colt .44, which lay several yards away where it had landed in the dirt. He clicked open the cylinder and began to eject the live round before he stopped and smiled wryly at Rehfuss. “Maybe I shouldn’t unload this thing?”
“Do what you want, James. But slapping a loaded revolver down on the table isn’t going to make the man chairing your evaluation look any more kindly on you.”
“Oh? And who’s that?”
The smile faded from Rehfuss’s face. “Admiral Percival, my boss.”
“Admiral?”
“Unless you’re one of the two or three people in this whole world he actually likes, then he’s Max Percival. But you don’t have to worry about that, James. The admiral isn’t going to like you. He isn’t going to like you one little bit.…”
Hawker followed Lester Rehfuss back down the dirt street, past the movie-set house facades and past the empty tanker truck. Children’s voices no longer floated from the nursery school—the reel-to-reel tape inside had been switched off. Up and down the street, CIA technicians were already busy replacing the plastic heads and trunks of the mannequins Hawker had “killed.” The mannequins were fixed on steel tracks for mobility, and thick black cables ran from their laser guns to an unseen source of power.
The vigilante rubbed his chest thoughtfully. The firefight test had been lifelike, all right. He hoped he was never asked to try it again.
The complex was located on the south side of Washington, D.C., not far from Bolling Air Force Base and the Naval Research Lab. Its entire ten acres was encircled by high military fencing, and camouflage netting covered the open areas. James Hawker had come here every day for the last three days. He had been interviewed by a dozen men whose last names he never knew. He had been asked searching questions by men in white smocks who he assumed were psychiatrists. He had been given a bank of written tests far more demanding than any he had ever taken in college or at the police academy in Chicago.
And why?
Because his friend and associate, Jacob Montgomery Hayes, one of the wealthiest men in the world, had sent a messenger to Hawker’s newly acquired fish shack on the west coast of Florida asking him to fly to Washington, D.C., immediately.
No explanations were offered. And, from Hayes—a man Hawker respected and admired—none were required.
Hawker caught the first flight from Miami to Washington International.
Lester Rehfuss met him at the airport, showed him to his hotel, and finally gave him a short briefing on the terrorist bombings. That was on a Monday. Rehfuss told him that seven civilian houses, apparently at random, had been bombed by a person or persons unknown. Because the bombing of the Rutledge home was the most recent—it had occurred only three days before—Rehfuss went into greater detail about it. So far, twenty-seven innocent, unsuspecting men, women, and children had been murdered.
The only survivor was Luke Rutledge, age sixteen, and he was now catatonic, so psychologically disturbed that he could not speak.
Hawker tried to pry more information out of Rehfuss. Had he been ordered to Washington to help? Who was behind it? How could anyone be sure the bombings were random? Didn’t there have to be some pattern behind it?
Rehfuss ref
used to answer. All he told Hawker was that he might be able to help, but first they had to be sure he was capable. Would Hawker submit to any tests asked of him?
Hawker consented on the spot.
It wasn’t until the next day he learned that Lester Rehfuss was with the CIA.
Hawker followed Rehfuss out of the firefight test area past a line of big corrugated steel and brick buildings. The doors on all of them warned ABSOLUTELY NO ADMITTANCE WITHOUT CLEARANCE!
Each door was guarded by a brace of Marines in battle dress.
For the first time Hawker realized he had actually seen very little of the complex in his three days there.
He wondered why he was being allowed to see more.
A modern paved street ran along the stretch of buildings, but the only vehicles there were either jeeps or unmarked government cars in bland colors.
Rehfuss stopped at a white-brick three-story house that looked like the solid old residence of a small-town doctor.
“This is it,” he said.
“Shouldn’t I change clothes? Wash up? Practice my Morse code?”
“Smart ass.” He tossed Hawker the sport jacket he had been carrying for him. “Put this on—at least try to cover up that cannon you’ve got strapped under your arm. Like I said, the admiral isn’t going to like you much as it is.”
Two Marines challenged their approach. Hawker had become used to the extreme security measures. They studied his Pliofilmed ID carefully, then they watched as first Rehfuss, then Hawker, touched their thumbs to the photoelectric eye after first inserting their IDs into the gray steel box beside the entrance.
The computers would match their thumb prints against those on the IDs and those in the computer’s files.
Almost immediately the doors swung open. The Marines did a salute arms as they went inside.
Hawker had never been inside the building before. Unlike most of the office complexes, this one lacked the stark military atmosphere of gray steel desks and bare linoleum floors. There was carpeting and soft neon lighting. In each office vestibule serious-looking women wearing ID badges worked at desktop computers.
“So where are we headed, oh, leader?” Hawker asked.
Rehfuss stopped at the elevator and touched the button. “Do you like movies?”
“What kind of movies?”
“New movies.”
Hawker shook his head. “Impossible. They stopped making movies when Cary Grant and John Wayne and David Niven left the business. Now they just make long TV programs. The male actors all go to the same hairstylist, and the female performers confuse bitchiness with acting. And if you can’t tell, no, I don’t like them.”
“Don’t speak too quickly. We have one today you may like.”
“Does it have a happy ending?”
“Almost.”
“Then don’t expect a glowing review.”
Still another Marine ushered them into a darkened room where a cement floor sloped toward a screen the size of a picture window: a movie room. The seating area was small, though, only about twenty plush chairs. Between the seating area and the screen the floor flattened abruptly, and there was a large table.
From the back of the room Hawker could see that five people sat in the front row. He couldn’t see their faces.
Rehfuss took a seat midway down, and Hawker sat beside him. “Trying to humor me before I get my evaluation?”
“If I were trying to humor you, I’d have brought popcorn,” Rehfuss said wryly. “Shut up and watch.”
From the front row an older man with white hair and an anvil jaw turned slightly. “Is the applicant with you, Agent Rehfuss?”
“He is, Admiral.”
In a louder voice, the admiral said, “Roll the film, then.”
Without any sign of a projector being switched on, the screen was suddenly illuminated. Hawker was surprised to see himself standing in the dirt street of the firefight range, just closing the cylinder of his Colt .44 magnum. On the right side of the screen digits measuring minutes, seconds, and hundredths of seconds timed him.
The film was in color.
James Hawker settled back and watched with interest. Why not? This would be like being favored with a preview of the way he knew he would someday die.…
four
“I thought good guys always wore white,” Rehfuss whispered with a smirk.
Hawker considered the screen and the black sweater he wore. “They do. Is that why all CIA agents wear gray suits?”
“Touché.”
“Touché yourself. How in the hell did your people get this thing processed and set up so fast?”
“It’s on tape, for one thing. We used three department cameramen. They were inside the houses. And, believe it or not, it’s not the first time we’ve ever tested someone. All the agents with a Blue Light rating get the firefight treatment.”
“Blue Light rating?”
“When a person is shot in the head, supposedly all he sees is a blue light.”
“Very romantic. Is that like a license to kill?”
“You read too many books. Watch yourself get outsmarted. Maybe you’ll learn something.”
So Hawker watched:
… watched as he nearly gunned down the mechanical lady with the shopping bag.
… watched as he blew away the two guys who jumped out of the bushes.
… watched as he dove into the tanker truck, got it rolling, then jumped out and nailed two more of the mannequins.
… watched as he wounded, then killed, the gunman in the third-floor window.
… watched all the rest of it, from the detonation of the smoke bomb to the final shoot-out with the three mannequins on the porch and, finally, his own demise at the hands of the pistol-packing bag lady. As he watched, the memory of the searing pain he had felt made his muscles knot once again, but he didn’t have long to think about it.
The lights went on almost immediately.
CIA Agent Lester Rehfuss was grinning. “Next time, get yourself a decent leading lady, Hawk. That mug of yours won’t sell a single ticket.”
“You were right about that back somersault I did. Pretty impressive.”
“Got a pretty good laugh from a couple of the guys up front. Or didn’t you notice?”
“Yeah, I noticed. And I’m just wondering how much it would cost me to buy a ticket to see them get hit by that goddamned laser beam.”
“You really would like that?”
“Hell, they laughed, didn’t they …?” But then Hawker saw what Rehfuss meant. The five people in the front row were on their feet now. Two of them turned and peered toward the rear of the theater as their eyes adjusted to the light.
Hawker had no trouble recognizing either of them.
The stocky, middle-sized man with the wire-rimmed glasses and the ascetic expression was Hawker’s friend, Jacob Montgomery Hayes.
The other was tall, lean, saber-faced Hendricks, Hayes’s acerbic butler.
Hawker hadn’t seen either of them for more than five months, so he had to restrain himself as he approached them. They, too, seemed happy to see him, and they met him halfway up the aisle, away from the others.
“Christ, Jake,” Hawker smiled, half whispering, “I knew you had connections, but I had no idea you were involved with the Central Intelligence Agency.”
Hayes, in his mid-sixties, wearing an Irish tweed jacket and no tie, smiled in return. “I’m not involved with them, James. But a friend of mine got in touch with me last Saturday about this bombing business, and I had to pull a few strings. The strings led me here.”
Hawker looked at the butler and grinned. “And Hank came along with you, too, huh?”
Hendricks hated to be called “Hank.”
The butler lifted his eyebrows, which was about as close as he ever came to smiling. “Quite a performance you gave for the cameras, James,” he said. “You die beautifully.”
Hawker shook his head. “I’m sorry about that, guys. I really am. I wanted t
o help, and I took all their damn tests. And the one I thought I’d be best at, the firefight, is the one I failed.”
“Would you gentlemen care to sit at the table while we go over a few things?” a voice called. It wasn’t a question. It was an order. Admiral Maxwell Percival stood at the head of the long mahogany table addressing them. He wore a dark blue civilian suit. His hair was thick, pure white, and he had wild, bushy eyebrows.
“Be right with you, Max,” Hendricks called back.
“Max?” Hawker asked.
“And what else would I call an American who was one of my subordinates in MI-5 during the war?” the Englishman asked with aplomb.
“Now you know one of the strings I had to pull,” Jake Hayes whispered as the three of them, followed by Rehfuss, took their seats.
Only Admiral Percival remained standing. He began, “I need not remind you, gentlemen, that what is said here falls under the National Security Secrets Act of 1942. You may not repeat to anyone what is said here under penalty of law. To my left is Agent Miller, to my right is Agent Nelson. Agent Rehfuss is sitting next to the participant. These agents have been asked to evaluate the test results of the participant. Prior tests concerning intellectual, psychological, and physical fitness were all satisfactory. I will not go into those, nor will they be available for the participant’s—or anyone else’s—perusal. We are here solely to discuss the participant’s performance on the firefight range. Agent Miller, you will give the first critique.” In a louder voice, Admiral Percival said, “Please roll the film again.”
Once more Hawker sat and watched as he ran the laser gauntlet. Twice Agent Miller had the tape stopped to criticize Hawker’s performance: for sloppy shooting when he only wounded the third-floor gunman (“Prone position is the most effective position for difficult shots”), and for reloading on the run (“He should have taken cover to reload. The participant had no idea where his adversaries were positioned”).
When the film was over the lights came on once more. Admiral Percival did not stand. He nodded at the man to his left. “You are excused, Agent Miller.”
Terror in D.C. Page 2