The Hearing

by James Mills

  The ATF men were silent. Carl said, “Historically, how often are car-bomb doors booby-trapped?”

  Rolf Zaeder, the agent with the Santa Claus face, said, “Forget it. Better than sixty percent, depending on the makers. What we’ve seen of this one—the RDX, way it’s packed, remote antenna—we’re looking at experts. If they haven’t booby-trapped the doors I’m just ashamed of them.”

  Terry walked in and unzipped the front of her baggy orange coveralls, revealing a yellow T-shirt and khaki shorts. “Sorry, guys.”

  Someone said, “Man here wants to go through the hatchback.”

  Terry laughed. “Gimme a head start, okay? I’ll be in Ohio.”

  Carl said, “So what now?”

  Terry said, “Listen, I saw something.”

  Heads turned, waiting.

  “When I came up through the top. I was twisting around to get my body out of the hole and I happened to look at the Trade Commission. There was a guy there in the window, silhouetted. I got a good look. Then he moved to his left, out of the window.”

  Carl said, “How many?”

  “One.”

  “Sure?”

  “That’s what I saw. I only saw one.”

  So the thermal imaging people were right. The Trade Commission was occupied.

  Carl walked outside with Max Iverson, away from the trucks and other agents.

  “So what do you think?”

  Iverson said, “Terry confirmed what the imaging people saw.”

  “What do you want to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. Tough call.”

  Carl said, “How sure are they there’s two? Terry only saw one.”

  “Positive. They can measure it. They know how much heat the average body radiates under different conditions. They say there’s no way there could be more or less than two bodies where they’re seeing the radiation. And they’re seeing it in the front room. Right where Terry saw the guy in the window.”

  “So all this tells you—what?”

  “Go in. End it.”

  “And if they blow up the judge and his daughter?”

  “It’s gotta end sometime, Carl.”

  Carl raised his head, appeared to be studying the stars. Then he said, “What about your intrusion team—the voice sensors and TV camera?”

  “They’re ready.”

  Four minutes after the AP bulletin, CNN’s “Breaking News” logo interrupted a science show, and the picture switched to a story about the agreement between Gus’s father, Ernesto Vicaro’s father, and the Briggs & Paulman tobacco company. An anchorman in Washington said, “Legalization of marijuana and cocaine could produce a sixty-billion-dollar-a-year legitimate industry. What this means personally for Judge Parham, should marijuana or cocaine ever become legal, is a fortune whose dimensions are virtually immeasurable.”

  The image had hardly faded from the screen when the opposition’s pundits and spin doctors weighed in with demands for Gus’s withdrawal. A special late edition of a Chicago tabloid was typical:

  PARHAM A PUSHER?

  DEAL SAYS YES!

  There were three of them, wearing black sneakers, black cotton pants, black T-shirts, and black face paint. It was late Friday night.

  Carl thought, Commandos. Give me a break. He said to Max Iverson, “So where’s Arnold?”

  “Arnold?”

  “Forget it.” Schwarzenegger. Iverson probably never heard of him.

  The blacked-up team slipped out of the command truck toward the Trade Commission. In the silence around the consoles, someone said, “So should we listen for a loud bang, or what?”

  Thirty-five minutes later they were back. A Puerto Rican FBI agent, in the command truck to translate Spanish-speaking voices from the newly inserted sensors, said, “We’re getting the carrier and that’s it. Either no one’s there or they’ve got nothing to say.”

  A monitor for the night-vision TV camera installed outside the rear of the Trade Commission showed a green image of the back door.

  The men in black disappeared.

  The Puerto Rican agent switched the sound from the speakers to his headset, lit a cigarette, and picked up a copy of Newsweek.

  Carl walked outside. It had been exactly thirty-five hours since the Mercedes arrived at Blossom. For the past eighteen hours, Rolf Zaeder had been wandering around outside the command truck telling everyone he expected a timer to set the bomb off “any second now … any second … annnnny second.” Carl would have given anything to know what time the timer was set for.

  Max Iverson appeared beside him.

  “Carl, tell me what you think of this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Those people in the Trade Commission aren’t going to stay there when the bomb goes off.”

  Carl said, “I know what you’re thinking.”

  “When they come out, we’ll see them on the TV. They’ll give themselves some running time—ten, fifteen minutes at least. However long they figure it’ll take them to get to safety will be long enough for the judge and his daughter to drive to safety.”

  “So you’d want them to drive out.”

  “Why not? If they’ve got the time. It’s a lot better than just sitting there and hoping to survive the explosion.”

  “Let me think about it.”

  Rothman called.

  Gus said, “Phil, I’m sorry about all the media—”

  “Don’t be. It may be turning.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Some preliminary polling indicates that your integrity in disclosing the agreement is hitting harder than the agreement itself.”

  “Well, well, well.”

  “But I’ve got something else you need to know.”

  “What is it?”

  “The experts out here have a new idea. If they could find out when the device is set to detonate, you might have time to drive the limousine to safety. They don’t know that they can find out, or how much of a window that will give you, but if they get some forewarning, they want you to be prepared to drive out. So what they want, they want to make sure you’ve shut down everything—air-conditioning, radio, minimize phone use to near zero—because you’ll need power to start the limo. The engineers are afraid that very soon now you’ll lack starting power.”

  “Phil, we’ve hardly used anything. The air-conditioning—”

  “No more air-conditioning, Gus.”

  “We’ve got to have some air in here. You can’t imagine. It’s not survivable without the AC, Phil.”

  “If may not be survivable with it. That’s what they’re saying out here. I’d believe them.”

  “Then let’s get off the phone. We’ll do our best. There’s not much left to cut.”

  23

  Since late Friday morning, Phil Rothman had been struggling with a question that excited his political heart. How could the threat of the car bomb be turned around, used to the advantage of the White House? The bomb contained tremendous political power waiting to be harnessed to a good idea. And now Rothman thought he had that idea.

  What if Samantha came out of this alive and were herself to testify before the Judiciary Committee? You would have a thirteen-year-old girl, innocent, beautiful, survivor of a car-bomb threat, responding to sordid revelations of prostitution brought by evil forces attacking her while she was down. She tells the world her side of the story and declares her love and respect for her newfound father. On television. Senators of both parties would be buried beneath an avalanche of letters, faxes, E-mail, and phone messages demanding Gus’s confirmation.

  Of course, you’d have to get the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to allow it—old Eric Taeger. But there were weapons. Taeger wasn’t too old to have libidinous desires that occasionally drove him to embarrassing indiscretions. If the need were sufficiently pressing, there were cards to be played.

  It looked good. Rothman took the idea to Dutweiler, who liked it. They decided not to trouble Gus with it now. Better to wait unti
l the bomb threat had been resolved and he and Samantha were out of the limousine.

  Friday morning Helen called Gier’s mobile phone. No answer. She waited an hour. Still no answer. She called Gier hourly all day. She called Harrington. Harrington hadn’t heard from him either. Gier was either dead or he’d dropped off the face of the earth. CNN said the Judiciary Committee had postponed, “until this difficult situation is resolved,” the confirmation vote that had been scheduled for Monday. The Senate floor vote set for Wednesday had also been put off.

  Friday night, her phone rang.

  “How ya doin’?”

  Cheerful, relaxed, not a problem in the world.

  “Fine, Warren. What’s happening?”

  “Not for the phone. You wanna meet?”

  Oh, no, Warren, of course not. Why would I ‘wanna meet? “In the office? Right now?”

  “I could come over. Save you the trouble opening up.”

  Warren Gier in her home? That’ll be the day.

  “The office is easy. Thirty minutes?” “You got it.”

  Warren came in slowly, taking his time, strolled around the white conference table, picked a chair, leaned back, and sighed. A man at the end of a productive mission, lots to say, no need to rush, savoring the impatience of his audience.

  “So, Mr. Warren Gier, is there anything you can’t do?”

  She hated sucking up to that revolting ego, but it was the price he put on his wares.

  “It does not look good for the judge. The car-bomb operation is controlled by Colombian security agents inside the Colombian Trade Commission across the street from the house Parham’s in. The chief of the operation drove the Mercedes into the block, parked it, went into the Trade Commission, changed from his chauffeur’s uniform to civilian clothes, and even now, as we speak, is watching the operation from the end of the street, right in among the cops and reporters.”

  “Warren …”

  “Yes?”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Everyone knows it. Almost everyone. The only thing the cops don’t know yet, I think, is that the agent’s at the end of the street.”

  “So how do you know?”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “I believe you, Warren. How do you know?”

  “A Filipino girl who works in a building behind the Trade Commission saw him come out—a cook, undocumented, not supposed to be here, but can’t keep from telling friends, who tell other friends. I’m always amazed how much trouble people have keeping their mouths shut. Sometimes you just can’t turn them off.”

  He smirked. If Helen believed in the devil, she’d say Warren had his help.

  She said, “So what do you know about him, the guy on the street?”

  “Tall, dark hair, blue polo shirt, jeans, white running shoes. I saw him this morning, standing around, chatting with cops and reporters. He wandered off a couple of blocks and talked on a mobile phone, briefly.”

  “Have you told the police any of this?”

  He let his jaw drop in mock surprise.

  “I work for the cops? I work for you, Helen.”

  “We don’t pay you, Warren.”

  “Don’t I know. But Taeger pays me, and he says, ‘You’re not working for me, you’re working for the Freedom Federation.’ He pays, so I’m working for whoever he says I’m working for. Why is it no one wants to claim me but everyone wants to know what I know?”

  “Don’t you think you should tell the police?”

  “Most of it they already know.”

  “And the rest? The part about the agent on the street?”

  “I can find out, they can find out. I don’t have to worry about the police.”

  “Have you told Harrington?”

  “Of course. He—”

  “—pays you. What did he say?”

  “He was too scared to say anything.” Warren’s lips formed a contemptuous little smile. “Isn’t it interesting? There’s no end to what some people will do to destroy each other as long as it’s not actually physical. Then a guy like Ernesto Vicaro comes along, couldn’t care less, actually prefers if it’s physical, and people go into absolute megashock. A bomb? A real bomb? Blow someone up? Couldn’t we just ruin the guy, wreck his life, send him off into outer darkness, disgrace, contempt, poverty? Do we actually have to hurt him?”

  “I guess they don’t have your high moral values, Warren.”

  “Does anyone?”

  She got rid of Warren and telephoned Carl. As the phone rang, she mentally thanked Warren for letting her know who she was—one of those blighted people who drew the line when things got physical. She might be an idealist, but she was not a terrorist.

  No answer. She tried his mobile phone. Still no answer.

  Warren had said the agent in the street was chief of the operation. So he could do something—call it off, make a deal, something.

  She called both numbers again. At 10:40 Carl answered the mobile phone.

  “It’s Helen. I have to see you.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “I have to see you.”

  “I’m really tied up now, Helen. What is it?”

  “I can’t tell you on the phone. I know something you have to know. You’ve got to see me.”

  “How important is it, Helen? I’m involved in something pretty critical right now.”

  “On a scale of one to ten, it’s a hundred.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In my office.”

  “Be out front in five minutes.”

  She jumped into Carl’s car, closed the door, and as he pulled away from the curb he said, “What is it?”

  “The car bomb’s controlled by two Colombian agents inside the Colombian Trade Commission, and a third outside who’s really running things. He’s the same guy who drove the Mercedes in and parked it.”

  “Where is he, the guy outside?”

  “Around the intersection someplace, with the cops and reporters.”

  “How d’you know this?”

  “I can’t tell you. A very reliable source.”

  “Warren Gier?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “What’s the agent’s name?”

  “I don’t know, but I know what he looks like.”

  “Tell me.”

  They had arrived at the intersection, Carl showing his DEA badge to uniformed cops blocking the street.

  He said it again. “What’s he look like?”

  She didn’t want to tell him. As soon as he knew everything, he’d drop her, send her away.

  She said, “Let’s take a look around. Maybe I’ll see him.”

  “Tell me what he looks like.”

  “Just let me see if I can find him.”

  Carl took a pair of handcuffs from the glove compartment and put them in his jacket pocket.

  They got out, and she led him on a wandering path through the crowd of onlookers. Gier had said the agent was tall and dark. Well, big help. There must have been about 2,000 people milling around the intersection, crowding the police barriers.

  So she looked for a blue polo shirt, jeans, and white running shoes. She scanned the crowd for tall Latin males in blue polo shirts, then maneuvered until she could get a glimpse of their pants and shoes.

  When she finally saw him, it was easy. He was outside the crush of spectators, standing alone. She wondered why Warren, with his taste for the bizarre, hadn’t mentioned the man’s face. It was fat and beefy, dark but not clearly Latin, the face of a German butcher, sitting on top of a frail, skinny body like a pumpkin on a stick. As she watched him, his gaze kept roaming. He wasn’t smiling, talking to friends, having a good time. He was intent, purposeful, there on business.

  “That’s him.”

  Carl followed her gaze.

  “How do you know?”

  “I was told—tall, dark, blue polo shirt, white running shoes, Latin.”

  Carl was still and quiet, studying the man. The
polo shirt hung loose outside the pants.

  “Helen, how sure are you of whoever told you?”

  “Very sure.”

  “You’re going to have to tell me, Helen. Was it Warren Gier?”

  She was silent.

  “People could die, Helen.”

  “It was Warren.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Why is it good?”

  “Because Warren would know.”

  Carl didn’t move. Finally he said, “Helen, will you help me? I don’t want to take my eyes off this guy.”

  “What can I do?”

  He handed her his car keys.

  “Bring the car right over there.” He pointed.

  Helen said, “It’s one-way. And there aren’t any parking places.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Put the car there, in the street. If there’s a problem I’ll come over and talk to the cops. Just put it there.”

  She got the car, parked it where she’d been told, left the emergency flashers on, and went back to Carl. He hadn’t moved. Nor had the agent.

  Carl said, “You know his name?”

  “No.”

  “Rubi Aguilera. We got a profile on him, but we couldn’t find him. Old buddy of Vicaro, when Vicaro was in the legislature mixing coke and politics. Did eleven months as an intelligence officer in the Colombian embassy right here in Washington, can you believe that? Let’s take a walk. Just a casual couple, live nearby, out for a stroll, see what’s going on.”

  He took her hand, walked toward Aguilera, angling to pass through a knot of onlookers on a plot of roadside grass. When they were three yards from Aguilera’s back, Carl let go of her hand and took two quick, silent steps. Directly behind Aguilera, he put both arms around his belly in a bear hug, reached one hand under the polo shirt, withdrew a pistol from the waistband, and slipped the hand with the gun into the front of Aguilera’s jeans.

  Aguilera, not turning around, laughed. “Whoa, man! Whoa!”

  From behind Aguilera’s ear, Carl said softly, “I’m a friend, Rubi. Just relax. Everything’s okay.”

  “Who are you, man? Get your hand outta my crotch!”

  Carl said, “Settle down, Rubi. Let’s not disturb all these nice people. You don’t want someone calling a cop. Just relax.”