by Blake Banner
* * *
The senator lived in an elegant, understated, five million dollar, red brick house on P Street NW. I was there at eight thirty the next morning, parked in the shade of some elegant plane trees fifty yards from her door, in an anonymous Ford Focus. I was wearing the latex gloves I had bought the night before at the drugstore, and waiting for her to show.
At nine, just as she had said, the Black Jeep rolled up to the door and Major Charles Hawthorn climbed out and rang the bell. Two minutes later, she stepped out of the house and he opened the back door of the Jeep for her. He checked the road, climbed in behind the wheel and took off. I followed them east, staying about seven or eight cars behind them, watching in front of me and behind me to see if they were followed—or if I was being followed.
Eventually they turned onto Pennsylvania and then I Street, and from I Street they turned onto New York Avenue and made for the Technoworld Parking Garage. I closed in, just four or five cars behind them, and followed them through the barrier into the dark maw of the entrance. As we spiraled steadily up toward the top floor, their tires echoed mine in a weird rhythm of sqeals, like wounded pterodactyls chasing each other, screaming in the cavernous half light. We finally came to the top floor. I saw the red lights on the black Jeep up ahead and stopped a few paces behind it. The major got out and I got out to show him it was me. He opened the door for the senator, spoke some urgent words to her. She shook her head and came to the Ford at a half run. He carried her case to the trunk and put it in next to my shoulder bag. As I closed the trunk he eyed me.
“She better come back in one piece, Walker.”
I didn’t bother to look at him. “Save it for your memoirs, Major. Wait half an hour before you leave.” I climbed in behind the wheel and handed her a pair of surgical gloves.
“Put these on, don’t take them off until I say you can.”
She took them and stared at them. I turned the car around and headed back down the ramp. She was still staring at the gloves, frowning.
I said, “Do it now.”
“Is this totally necessary?”
“Yes. Do it. Then turn off your cell. The GPS makes it trackable.”
She sighed and pulled them on as we came out of the garage and into the morning sunlight. Then she turned off her cell, like it was the most boring thing she had ever done.
We crossed the Potomac via the 14th Street Bridge, as though we were headed south. After Springfield we joined the I-95. I kept one eye fixed on the rearview mirror all the time, drove fast and changed lanes a lot. At one point the senator said, “What are you doing? What’s got into you?”
I said, “Don’t talk till we get to Montclair.”
Her cheeks may have flushed. I wasn’t looking.
By the time we reached Montclair I was pretty sure we were not being tailed, or at least not in a car, and I pulled off onto Dumfries Road, headed west. Pretty soon we were in semi-countryside. She gave me what was probably meant to be a withering look and said, “Can I talk now, sir?”
I still had one eye on the mirror. “Wait till Manassas.”
She didn’t talk again until I took Route 15 out of Warrenton, headed toward Culpeper. Then she couldn’t contain herself any longer, narrowed her eyes and shook her head and said, “Have you any idea where you are going? Are you lost?”
I smiled at her, which made her frown, and said, “Not at all, Cyndi. We are on our way to Charlottesville.”
“And in what universe is that on the way to Albuquerque?”
“In the one where you want to get there alive.”
“And if possible this year!”
Satellites I couldn’t do anything about, except hope Omega didn’t know yet that I was Joseph O’Brien, and therefore what car I was driving. There were no choppers above us and I was certain by now that we were not being tailed by a car, so I allowed myself to relax, settled to a steady seventy and said. “You know time is relative, right?”
“What?”
“I aim to get you to Albuquerque in three to five days.”
“Three to five days?”
“But that is going to seem like five years if you don’t stop griping.” She drew breath but I kept talking. “Tell me something, were you an only child or an older sister?” She turned in her seat and stared at me with wide, angry eyes. I glanced at her and shrugged. “My money is on elder sister. Am I right?”
She turned back to the road. “I do not intend to have this conversation with you. You are rude, boorish and insulting.”
I shook my head. “I’m not being insulting. You are a good, caring person who wants to do the right thing and look after people weaker than herself. I think that’s admirable, and it is something you often find in elder sisters.”
She frowned at me for a while. There was suspicion in her eyes. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” I looked at her and smiled. “You’re also bossy and certain that you know best all the tiume.”
She sighed.
“Most of the time you probably do. But in this case you don’t. I do.”
“So were you an older brother or an only child?”
“I was the younger brother. Hated my father and wanted to rebel. It was either sex, drugs and rock’n’roll or the army. I chose the army.”
She was quiet for a while. “You don’t seem the army type.”
“Yeah, well, the Regiment isn’t quite like the regular army.”
“Your father was in Omega?”
I nodded. “One of the top three.”
She considered me for a while. Outside, the world passed in a steady flow of trees, occasional houses and farms, and the steady throb of eastbound vehicles passing on my left.
“You must know a lot about Omega.”
“I know more than most people who are not members.”
She looked curious. “Why aren’t you more involved with Marni Gilbert and Professor Gibbons? Seems to me you could be a real asset.”
I shrugged. “It’s a long story. They have their way of doing things. It isn’t my way.” I studied her face a moment. She didn’t look away. I said, “They are a bit like you, Cyndi. They believe that they can tackle Omega by following the rules. They believe that Omega is like the Mafia, or a drugs cartel: a problem within society, that can be dealt with in the same way as other problems, by applying the usual solutions, and that life, society, the world will just keep right on going.” I shrugged. “But it isn’t like that.”
She gave a lopsided smile that was half humorous and half skeptical. “It isn’t? OK, maybe they are more powerful than the Mafia, and the corruption goes to a very high level, but it is still within society, and we still have to deal with it by following our own rules.” She shrugged. “That’s why it’s called the Rule of Law.”
I waited a moment, watching the long, straight road ahead, sucking my teeth. Finally, I shook my head. “Cyndi, if you had gone to this meeting with Gibbons by plane, which would have been the logical thing to do, by tonight you, Marni and Gibbons would have been dead. If we had taken the main east-west interstates—the obvious route—by tonight we would have been dead. You are a United States congresswoman, but you are forced to take an elaborate, secret route across America, in a hired car, because Omega is hunting you down. I have been twice to their office—in the Pentagon…”
She leaned forward, frowning. “What? They have an office in the Pentagon? You cannot be serious!”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “As I recall, the Mafia have no offices in the Pentagon. You have no idea yet what you are up against.” I waited a moment, wondering how much to tell her. “You remember the Federal Agent who helped blow the nuclear bomb at the UN about a year ago? They thought at first he was Agent Harrison McLean, then it turned out not to be. In the end they never traced him, right?”
“Of course I remember, it was what started my campaign.”
“That was me. I defused that bomb. It was intended to trigger a war with Europe.”
“And as an incidental bonus take out Marni and Gibbons. You kept asking on TV, how could terrorists get hold of a U.S.-made tactical nuclear device? Well, now you know. The terrorists were a front and the bomb was supplied to them by Omega. Omega owns people in Congress, in the military, in the courts and in law enforcement.”
She had gone very pale. “Is this true, what you’re telling me? I can’t believe it. It’s science fiction.”
“You once described them as a cancer, on TV. They are not a cancer, Cyndi. They are a symptom of a sickness that goes much deeper. When I tell you they have an office at the Pentagon, and that former president Hennessy was a senior member, I am just scratching the surface.”
She stared at me for a long time. Then she said, “Hennessy… He was killed, in a bomb blast at the Pentagon, just a few days after…” I glanced at her, but I didn’t say anything. She put her hand to her mouth. “That was you?”
I shrugged. “Was it?”
“But… you’re a terrorist!”
“Don’t get carried away, Cyndi. Right now I am the guy taking you safely where you need to be. Don’t lose your perspective.”
“You can’t go around just murdering people willy-nilly because you don’t agree with their politics!”
I burst out laughing.
“What is so funny?”
“Your belief in your system. It is actually refreshing. I wish you knew how many men, women and children were murdered by the people who died in that office. And not because they disagreed with their politics, simply because it was expedient to kill them. Marni’s father was one of them.”
“What proof have you got of that?”
It wasn’t so much a challenge as a plea. “Proof? Proof I could put before a committee, or a court of law? None. My father told me on his death bed. Gibbons and Marni, they have some proof we have accumulated over time: recordings, video…”
We were quiet for a time as we approached Charlottesville. I turned onto the I-64 and started heading west.
“But if you plan to challenge Omega through the courts of through committees, you better be damn careful about what judges preside, and how those committees are constituted.”
She shook her head. “Dear God, I hope I haven’t made the biggest mistake of my life here. What will you do to me if I refuse to cooperate with you?”
I considered her for a moment, then sighed. “Nothing, and to be honest, Cyndi, that is the least of your worries. You have been very vocal about your belief in the existence of a government within the government, and Omega must be acutely aware of you as a threat. By now they will have studied you and they will know everything about you and your family, and about your associates and friends. Chances are very high that they know about this meeting.”
“How could they?”
“That depends on how careless you have been. Your security team is sloppy, overconfident and arrogant. So are you. There are a number of people they might have got to, and a dozen ways they might have found out. We have to assume they are looking for you right now.” I gave a small laugh. “You don’t need to be afraid of me. Right now is probably the safest you’ve been for the last year.” I grinned. “I’m like the good Terminator. I won’t let anything happen to you, but you do need to trust me.”
She didn’t look amused or convinced, and we drove on in silence, toward the George Washington national forest.
Four
The rest of the drive went without incident. We followed the I-81 as far as Beckley and then the I-64 in a big loop through the forests and into Kentucky as far as Mt Sterling, a small town outside Lexington. Before we got there, at just past five PM, I pulled in to a small, seedy looking motel at the roadside, told Cyndi to stay in the car, and went in to reception pulling off my gloves.
The guy behind the desk was in his forties, overweight and didn’t look at me when I walked in. He was watching a small, portable TV that was more interesting than I was. That suited me fine.
“I need a room for the night.”
“Single or double?”
“Me and my wife.”
“Sign here. ID and credit card.”
He shoved a book at me. I gave him Joseph O’Brien’s ID and card and put an illegible signature in his book. He gave me a key and told me where the room was, all without raising his eyes from the TV.
I pulled the latex gloves back on, parked the car outside the door to our room and carried our luggage inside. Cyndi closed the door slowly, staring at the double bed. The room was dingy and unattractive in a functional way, with melamine and vinyl furniture and walls that could have done with a lick of paint five years back.
“What the hell is this?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll sleep on the chair.”
“Not good enough.”
I looked at her and felt a flush of anger in my belly. “You want separate rooms?”
“Of course I want separate rooms!”
“OK, you want to go to reception and book a second room, be my guest. While you’re at it, call Major Charles Hawthorn to come and drive you the rest of the way to Albuquerque.”
“What?”
“Wake up, Cyndi!” I pointed in the general direction of reception. “You book a room and the first thing he is going to ask you for is ID, and after that your credit card! The minute they go into the system, red flags will go up all over the Omega IT system! Within three hours you’ll be dead!”
Her face went crimson and for a moment I thought she was going to stamp her foot. “This is intolerable!”
“I am getting tired of arguing with you, Cyndi. I am going to get you to Albuquerque alive, and that means being inconspicuous and not leaving a trail.” I pointed at her. “Keep fighting me and you will cause a problem.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“I am telling you, that if you keep fighting me at every step you are going to attract attention. And if we are spotted by Omega, they will come after you. Get that into your damned head!”
Her jaw dropped, not figuratively but literally. “I have never been spoken to like that!”
“I told you, get used to it, because for the next five days, unless you shape up, you’re going to get a lot of it!”
“I am a United States Senator, goddammit! You cannot treat me like this!”
I picked up a leaflet on the bedside table. It advertised take out pizza and hamburgers. I studied at it a moment. “I have heard you say some real smart things over the last year, Cyndi. But what you said just now was about the stupidest thing I ever heard anybody say. Political office does not make you worthy of respect. Your actions make you worthy of respect.” I handed her the leaflet. “We don’t leave this room till tomorrow morning. Choose something to eat. I’ll call out.”
She threw the leaflet on the bed, then slammed into the bathroom to have a shower. I chose for her, made the call, poured myself a stiff measure of Irish and sat and thought about the only weak link in our security so far. It might be nothing, or it might prove to be a problem the closer we got to Albuquerque.
Unless she had told her husband, the only person who knew that Cyndi was with me, in that car, was Major Charles Hawthorn. At least, that had been true this morning. Now it was anybody’s guess. I had taken an eccentric enough route coming out of D.C. to throw any tail off our scent, but the closer we got to our destination, the smaller the search area was going to become. I had no particular reason to believe that Hawthorn was in the pay of Omega, but I had no reason not to, either. And logic dictated that over the last few months Omega would have been pulling out all the stops to get somebody in Cyndi’s inner circle. Her husband and Hawthorn would have been prime targets for them.
Whether he was in their pocket or not, I had to assume that he was, and that meant that within the next few hours I needed to find a new vehicle: either rent one or steal one. Both had drawbacks in terms of being traceable, but for the moment I figured renting as Joseph O’Brien was the safest bet
, because Omega would not yet have made the connection between the Focus and the fake ID.
Cyndi came out of the bathroom in a robe with a towel wrapped around her head like a turban. She sat in a chair on the other side of the room, with her elbows on her knees and seemed to examine her thumbs for a moment. She still had her gloves on.
“I owe you an apology,” she said. I didn’t say anything and after a moment she looked up. I was watching her. “What I said about being a senator was stupid and you were right to slap me down. And it is also true that I have been on your case all day. I guess I am scared and my go-to response to being scared is to become aggressive.”
“It’s not the worst go-to response to fear. Just make sure you focus your aggression in the right direction. Apology accepted.”
She smiled. “You are also a big pain in the ass when you get going.”
I lit a Camel, then tossed the bottle of Bushmills, the pack of cigarettes and my lighter across the bed, where she could reach them. She poured herself a drink and lit up.
After a moment I said, “There is a threshold.”
She frowned. “A threshold?”
“When people are trying to kill you. At first there is a sense of unreality as though your brain cannot accept that this is really happening. A lot of people die in that state. If you manage to survive it, you cross over a threshold, where the full impact of the possibility of death hits you. Then your autonomic system kicks in and takes over and you panic. Because as a species, at least in the West, we have forgotten how to deal with death. Your heart rate goes off the scale, your blood pressure goes through the roof and, worst of all, you stop thinking. A lot of people who didn’t die in the first stage, die in a state of panic.”
“And then?”
“Then you realize that if you want to live, you need to focus and think. You can’t give in to panic. And you can’t pander to emotions, fear, good manners or sensibilities. You focus on what you need to do to stay alive.”
“Is this a master class from the master?”
“You’d better believe it.”