“Shit, Molly! We have to be in Washington by six o’clock at the latest! Your goddamned father—”
“I know!” She had raised her voice almost to a shriek; tears were coursing down her cheeks. “You think I’m not aware of that every second, Ben? The plane’ll be there at Hanscom in half an hour.”
“That barely gives us enough time! The flight takes something like two and a half hours!”
“There’s a regular commercial shuttle leaving Boston every half hour, for God’s sake! There should be no problem—”
“No! We can’t take a commercial flight. That’s insane. At this point? It’s far too risky, if for no other reason than the guns.” Once again I looked at my watch and did a swift calculation. “If we leave now, we should just barely make it to the Senate.”
I let Balog in, paid him, thanked him for his speedy assistance, and showed him out.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.
It was ten minutes after three.
SIXTY-EIGHT
At a few minutes past three-thirty, we were airborne.
Molly had, as usual, come through in the clutch. The architectural plans of all public buildings in Washington, D.C., are a matter of public record, filed in the city records bureau. The problem, however, is obtaining them; but a number of private firms in Washington specialize in such searches for a fee. While I was becoming a dignified, wheelchair-bound older man, Molly had contacted one of these firms and—at an exorbitant cost for expediting the service—had had them fax her, at a local copy shop, photocopies of the blueprints of the Hart Senate Office Building.
While that was in the works, she had, posing as an editor of The Worcester Telegram, contacted the office of the senator from Ohio who served as vice-chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. The senator’s press aide was more than happy to fax this editor the latest schedule for tonight’s historic hearing.
Thank God, I told myself, for facsimile technology.
During the two-and-a-half-hour flight, we scrutinized the schedule and the plans until I felt sure my plan was workable.
It seemed to be foolproof.
* * *
At 6:45, the chair-car van I had hired at the airport pulled up to the entrance of the Hart Senate Office Building. A few minutes earlier, the driver had, as we requested, dropped Molly off several blocks away at a car-rental agency. She was angry about this aspect of my plan: if I was risking my life to save that of her father’s, why should she be reduced to, in effect, driving the getaway car? She had done that in Baden-Baden, and didn’t want to do it again.
“I don’t want you there,” I told her on the way to the Capitol. “Only one of us should be subjected to this danger.”
She sputtered in protest, but I went on: “And even if you were in disguise, it’s way too risky for both of us to be there. People are going to be watching very closely—we can’t afford to be seen together. Either one of us might be recognized; having two of us there at least doubles the chance that we’ll be spotted. And this is a job that requires only one person.”
“But if you don’t know the identity of the assassin, why is the disguise necessary?”
“There will be others—working for Truslow or the Germans—who will no doubt be briefed on my appearance. And who’ll be instructed to find me—and to eliminate me,” I replied.
“All right. But I still don’t understand why you can’t just smuggle a gun through the press gallery and take out the assassin. I doubt there’s a metal detector there.”
“Maybe there is a metal detector there tonight, though I doubt it. But in any case, it isn’t just a matter of smuggling a gun in. The press gallery’s on the second floor—too far away from the witness stand. And too far away from where the assassin will have to be stationed.”
“Too far?” Molly objected. “You’re a good enough shot. Christ, I’m a good enough shot!”
“That’s not the point,” I said abruptly. “I have to be there, in proximity to the assassin, in order to determine which one he is. The press gallery’s too distant.”
I had overruled her, and she had reluctantly acquiesced. In matters of medicine she was the expert; in this I was—or, at least, I had to be.
The Capitol was lit up as I approached, its dome brilliant against the evening dusk. The traffic was snarled with weary commuters trying to get home from their government jobs.
Outside the Hart building a large crowd had gathered: spectators, onlookers, what appeared to be members of the press. A long line snaked out the door, presumably people waiting to be admitted to Room 216, dignitaries and the well connected who’d been issued special passes.
It was a glittery crowd, and no surprise: tonight’s extraordinary hearing was a hot ticket in Washington, gathering as it did some of the leading power brokers in the nation’s capital.
Including the new Director of Central Intelligence, Alexander Truslow, who had just returned from a visit to Germany.
Why was he here?
Two of the four major American television networks were carrying the coverage live, preempting regularly scheduled programming.
How would the world react when they saw that the surprise witness was none other than the late Harrison Sinclair? The shock would be extraordinary.
But it would be as nothing compared with the assassination of Sinclair on live television.
When would he come out?
And from where?
How could I possibly stop him, protect him, if I didn’t know when and how he would appear?
The driver secured my wheelchair to the platform at the back of the van and electrically lowered it to the ground. It gave off a high mechanical whine. Then he detached the wheelchair and helped me up the ramp. When he had wheeled me into the crowded entrance lobby, I paid him, and he left.
I felt exposed and vulnerable and deeply afraid.
For Truslow and his people, and the new Chancellor of Germany, the stakes were enormous. They could not risk exposure, that was certain. Two men—two insignificant men, really—stood between them and their own particular version of global conquest. Between them and dividing up the spoils of a new world; between them and an incalculable fortune. Not a measly five or ten billion, but hundreds of billions of dollars.
What, compared to that, were the lives of two spooks, Benjamin Ellison and Harrison Sinclair?
Was there any question now that they’d stop at nothing to have us, as they say in the spy business, neutralized?
No.
And there, in the room just beyond the crowd in which I sat, beyond the two sets of metal detectors, beyond the two rings of security guards, sat Alexander Truslow, beginning his opening remarks. No doubt his own security people were planted everywhere.
So where was the assassin?
And who was the assassin?
My mind raced. Would they recognize me despite the precautions I’d taken to disguise myself?
Would I be recognized?
It seemed unlikely. But fear is irrational sometimes, not subject to logic.
To all appearances, I was an amputee in a wheelchair. I had bound my legs underneath me, so that I was sitting on them. The wheelchair I had selected was wide enough to accommodate this. Balog, the makeup wizard, had hastily tailored the suit pants so that they looked like the sort of adaptation a real amputee would have made to an elegant suit. A lap blanket completed the effect. No one would be looking for a legless older man in a wheelchair.
My hair was quite convincingly gray, as was my beard, and the age wrinkles in my skin could withstand the closest scrutiny. My hands bore slight liver spots. My horn-rimmed glasses imparted a professorial dignity that, in combination with everything else, utterly altered my appearance. Balog had refused to do anything less subtle than that, and now I was glad of it. I appeared to be a diplomat or a business executive, a man in his late fifties or early sixties who had unfairly suffered the ravages of aging. In no way did I look like Benjamin Ellison.
<
br /> Or so I was convinced.
Toby Thompson, of course, had been my inspiration for the disguise. A man I would never see again, never be able to confront directly. He had been killed, but he had given me an idea.
A man in a wheelchair both attracts attention and deflects it. This is one of the quirks of human nature. People turn to stare at you, but just as quickly—as anyone who’s ever been wheelchair-bound will tell you—they look away, as if embarrassed to be caught staring. As a result, the person in the wheelchair often attains a peculiar anonymity.
I had taken care, too, to arrive as late as possible, though, of course, not too late. An excess of time spent sitting in the hearing room, where I stood a chance, however small, of being recognized, would be dangerous.
I had taken another precaution as well, which was Molly’s idea. Since one of the most powerful human senses is that of smell, which often works on us subliminally, she had suggested placing a small quantity of an acrid, medicinal-smelling chemical on the seat of the chair. This hospital odor would, subtly and unstatedly, complete my disguise. It was, I thought, brilliant.
Now I waited in the milling crowd, looking around with gravitas befitting my imagined station for a place to enter the line. A middle-aged couple kindly gestured to me to get in line ahead of them. I took them up on their offer, wheeled myself over, and thanked them.
There was a long table by the metal detectors, manned by young Capitol Hill staffers who were giving out pale blue passes to those on their lists of invited guests. When the line had reached the table, I took my card in the name of Dr. Charles Lloyd of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.
One by one, people were being guided through the metal detector. As occasionally happens, there were several false alarms. A man ahead of me passed through the gate and set off the alarm. He was asked to remove all keys and change from his pockets. From the specs Seeger had provided for me, I knew that the metal detector was a Sirch-Gate III, that at its center it was sensitive enough to detect 3.7 ounces of stainless steel. I knew, too, that the security precautions would be extensive.
Hence, of course, the wheelchair. I knew that Toby had on more than one occasion carried a pistol through airport metal detectors simply by placing it beneath a sheet of lead foil under his chair’s seat cushion. I didn’t dare be quite that bold, though. A gun thus concealed would be too easily discovered in a perfunctory search.
The American Derringer Model 4, which is quite an unusual gun, had been built into an arm of the wheelchair. It would be indistinguishable from the surrounding steel.
So as I wheeled up to the search gate, I remained fairly confident that the gun would not be found.
But my heart pounded loudly and swiftly in my chest. It filled my ears with a rapid, thunderous beat that blocked out all other sounds.
I felt a rivulet of sweat run down my forehead, over my left eyebrow, and drop into my eye.
No, my heartbeat could not be heard. But my sudden perspiration was evident to all. Any security agent trained to look for signs of stress or nervousness would zero in on me. Why was this prosperous-looking gentleman in a wheelchair sweating so heavily? The lobby was neither stuffy nor particularly hot; in fact, a cool breeze ran through it.
I should have taken something to control my automatic nervous responses, but I couldn’t take the chance of dulling my reactions.
And as beads of sweat rolled down my face, one of the security guards, a young black man, beckoned me over to one side.
“Sir?” he said.
I glanced over at him, smiled pleasantly, and wheeled myself toward where he stood, on one side of the metal detector.
“Your pass, please?”
“Surely,” I said, and handed him the pale blue card. “God, when does winter come? I simply can’t bear this weather.”
He nodded distractedly, looked quickly at the pass, and handed it back. “I love it just this temperature,” he replied. “Wish it could stay like this all year. Winter gets here all too soon—I hate cold weather myself.”
“I love it,” I said. “I used to love skiing.”
He smiled apologetically. “Sir, are you…”
I guessed at what he was trying to say. “I can’t get out of this damned thing easily, if that’s what you mean.” I smacked the gleaming teak armrests, in imitation of Toby. “Hope I’m not disrupting anything.”
“No, sir, not at all. Obviously you can’t go through the gate. I’m supposed to use one of those handheld deals.”
He was referring to the Search Alert handheld metal detection unit, which emitted an oscillating tone. When it came near metal, the frequency of the tone shot up.
“Go right ahead,” I said. “Again, sorry about all the inconvenience.”
“No problem, man. No problem at all. I’m sorry to have to do this to you. It’s just that they’re stepping up security tonight for some reason.” From a table next to the gate he took the small handheld device, a box attached to a long U-shaped metallic loop. “You’d think it’d be enough they make you get these passes. But they’re juicing up all the security. There’s another gate up there”—he pointed at the security station at the entrance to the hearing room a few yards away—“so you’re gonna have to go through this all over again. Guess you’re used to it, huh?”
“It’s the least of my problems,” I said placidly.
The device whined as he brought it near me, and I tensed. He ran it up my legs, over my knees, and suddenly, when it got to my thighs—and the concealed pistol—the box whooped up to a high pitch.
“What’ve we got here?” he muttered more to himself than to me. “Damn thing’s too sensitive. The metal in the chair’s setting it off.”
And as I sat there, dripping with sweat, the blood rushing in my ears, I suddenly heard the amplified voice of Alexander Truslow, coming from the loudspeaker system in the hall.
“… wish to thank the committee,” he was saying, “for calling public attention to this grave problem besetting the agency I so love.”
The guard dialed down the sensitivity knob and ran it over me again.
Once again, as it neared the arm of the chair, where the gun was concealed, it emitted a shrill metallic wail.
I tensed again, and felt droplets of sweat falling off my brow, my ears, the end of my nose.
“Goddamned thing,” the guard said. “Pardon my French, sir.”
Truslow’s voice again, clear and melodious:
“… certainly make my own job easier. Whoever this witness is, and whatever the substance of his testimony, it can only benefit us.”
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’d love to get in there before Truslow’s finished his testimony.”
He stepped back, switched the machine off in frustration, and said exasperatedly: “I hate those things. Go on around this way.” He escorted me around the metal detector gate. I nodded, cocked my head gamely in a kind of salute, and wheeled ahead to the next security station. It seemed to be a bottleneck; a sizable crowd was gathered there. Some of them were craning their necks, trying to see into the hearing room. What was the problem? What was the delay?
Again Truslow’s voice over the loudspeakers, calm and gracious: “… any testimony that can fling open the shutters and let in the light of day.”
Inwardly I cursed, my whole body screaming: Move it, damn it! Move! The assassin was already in place, and in a matter of seconds Molly’s father would walk into the room.
And here I was, detained by a bunch of rent-a-cops!
Move, goddamn it!
Move!
Again I was waved around to the side of the metal detector gate. This time it was a woman, white, middle-aged, with brassy blond hair, a buxom figure within an ill-fitting blue uniform.
She inspected my pass sourly, glanced up at me, and summoned someone over.
Here I was, a matter of feet, mere feet, from the entrance to Room 216, and this goddamned woman was taking her goddamned time.
Fro
m the hearing room I heard a loud gaveling. A murmur in the crowd. The sudden dazzlingly bright flash of cameras.
What was it?
Had Hal arrived in the room?
What the hell was going on?
“Please,” I said as the woman returned with another middle-aged woman, this one black and of thinner build, apparently her superior. “I’d like to get inside as soon as possible.”
“Hold on a second,” the blond woman said. “Sorry.”
She turned to her boss, who said, “I’m sorry, Mister, but you’re going to have to wait until the next recess.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. No! It couldn’t be!
From the hearing room, the stentorian tones of the committee counsel: “Thank you, Mr. Director. We all appreciate your coming here and lending your support to what can only be a painful time for the Central Intelligence Agency. At this point, with no further ado, we would like to bring in our final witness of these hearings. I would ask that there be no flash photography, and that everybody in the room please remain seated while—”
“But I have to get in there!” I objected.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the boss objected, “but we have our instructions not to admit anyone further at this time, until there’s a recess called or a break of some kind. I’m sorry.”
I sat, almost paralyzed with fear and anxiety, looking beseechingly at the two security guards.
In just seconds, now, Molly’s father would be murdered.
I couldn’t just sit here. I had come too far—we had come too far—to let this happen.
I had to do something.
SIXTY-NINE
Staring them down, eyes flashing with indignation, I said: “Look, it’s a medical emergency.”
“Of what sort, sir—”
“It’s medical, dammit. It’s personal. I don’t have any time!” I indicated my lap—my bladder, or my bowels, or whatever they chose to conclude.
This was a desperate move. I knew from the blueprints that there was no public restroom in the lobby. The only one equipped for the handicapped was outside the hearing room. But there was a public facility two flights up, which I could get to without going through security. I knew that, but would they? It was a calculated risk. And if they did?
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