He’d talked to Mutaib at 6:00 P.M., using a pay phone in the Eastern Market Metro station. The marble blocks were coming at 3:00 P.M. tomorrow. Mutaib had promised the refined coordinates would be delivered by courier on Wednesday. The weapon would be delivered sometime on Thursday morning, and the warheads sometime after that. Heismann had questioned so many deliveries so close to the period of intense security awareness in the area, but Mutaib had told him the truck shipments were being assembled in Baltimore and that the timing was deliberately being kept vague for security purposes. In his view, multiple deliveries would make them seem more routine to the police, and, in any event, the arrangements could not be changed now.
Heismann pulled the umbrella closer to his face as another police car went by, then resumed walking back toward his town house. The one remaining element of the plan he had to focus on was his escape. He’d picked a route on the map, but now he needed to walk the route a few times to make sure it wasn’t going to be blocked. And then he needed to walk through the time and motion requirements of the final identity change, setting the fires, and getting away from the house. He also had to position the big Suburban in a likely location, and dispose of the minivan. He’d seen a Catholic church parking lot three blocks away that ought to work for that purpose.
The rain rattled steadily on the umbrella. It had better not rain on der Tag, he thought, or they’ll all be inside and this thing won’t work. He had three full days to do all the walk-throughs. And he still had to figure out how to get to the bank after the attack. He smiled at the thought of what was going to happen there.
At 9:00 P.M., Swamp, who’d been pacing in his apartment ever since getting back, decided to call Bertie. He’d been stewing about the confrontation with Lucy, and he badly wanted a second opinion. Swamp told him about the developments in his own investigation, the general outline of his previous understanding with Lucy VanMetre, and what had happened in the restaurant.
“Like I told you, Swamp,” Bertie said, “dangerous serpent.”
“But why would she do that?” Swamp asked. “Everything up to that moment had been cooperation: I fed her information on what I was doing, and she…she—”
“She pocketed all that and kept you in the mushroom mode, didn’t she?” Bertie said.
“Well, I guess, but I wasn’t asking anything from her except some support when our own investigation coughed up something solid. If it did.”
“I also told you Lucy runs her own agenda, all the time,” Bertie said. “I’m guessing she may have been sincere right up to the point where Hallory told her to quit playing games with you or he’d shitcan her. Grab our Lucy by the career, you’ll get a handful of teeth every time.”
Swamp shook his head as a blast of wind and rain shook his windows. On the fourteenth floor, the weather was often more vigorous than down in the street. “And that’s another thing I don’t get—why in the hell would Hallory care what I’m doing? He has to know OSI isn’t really challenging PRU.”
Swamp heard some ice cubes clinking in a glass. “Hallory’s close to losing it, from what my people are telling me,” Bertie said. “In over his head from the git-go, and the way they’re trying to seal up this inauguration, he’s sinking deeper and deeper every day. I’ve pulled my people out of their counterintelligence effort. We feed him intel reports, but the director has told me to get out to arm’s length and stay there.”
“Be that as it may, I’m gonna talk to Tad McNamara tomorrow morning. Tell him what happened. Something’s not right here.”
“You be careful, Swamp Morgan,” Bertie said. “Don’t get too visible this close to the big deal. She threatened to send your ass to GitMo, she can probably make that happen in this threat climate. And they have their reasons, which I can’t discuss on a clear phone.”
“I suppose,” Swamp said. He thought he heard something click on the line, and he glanced outside to see if there was lightning. There wasn’t. “But I’m going to keep looking for this Heismann, or Hodler, or whatever he’s calling himself.”
“Just make it an office exercise for the rest of this week, okay? No nighttime excursions to Capitol Hill. No canvassing of all the realty offices in town to see if the Royal Kingdom Bank’s been renting places. No late-afternoon social calls on the director of the Secret Service. Just cool it for this week.”
“And then?”
“And then a new crew’s gonna work security for the joint session, and they might care about your firefly. Right now, in Hallory’s view, you’re crank-dancing. You’re retired, remember?”
Swamp gave up. “All right, Bertie, and thanks for listening.”
“No problem, buddy. But Swamp?”
“Yeah?”
“My phone’s a lot different from yours. Even here in this apartment. And right now, mine’s telling me I might not have been the only one listening.”
Bertie hung up. Swamp kept the receiver to his ear, but he heard only silence, and then the dial tone. He hung up and sat back in his chair.
What the hell is going on here? he wondered. Had Lucy gotten a wiretap order on his home phone? That quickly? And then he realized she might have done it a long time ago. Shit.
He got up, went out into the hallway, and looked out a front window. There was a semicircular drive out front, where parking was supposedly reserved for short-term evolutions, such as loading and unloading, taxis, or prospective tenants. At this time of night, there were rarely any cars out there, but tonight there was a large dark Suburban with a light rack and some whip antennas parked right out front. Because of the building’s front spots, he could see two whitish blurs shimmering through the rain-swept windshield. Then what looked like a hand came up and waved at him once. Swamp just stared for a moment, resisting an impulse to give whoever it was the finger.
He went back into his apartment. This had to be Lucy’s doing. Okay, let them play their games. Bertie had, perhaps unwittingly, given him an idea—canvass realty offices in the city. See if any of them had done any business with that Royal Kingdom Bank. And better yet, he’d say he was calling from the U.S. Secret Service.
9
HEISMANN SAT DOWN ON A PARK BENCH FOR A MOMENT BEFORE walking the final few blocks to the Botanic Garden Conservatory. He was at the Capitol end of the Mall, wearing some of the same disguise elements he’d used the night he’d Tasered the patrol officers, only not looking quite so old. No cane this time, and graying hair under the homburg, instead of white. Two blocks away were the empty reflecting pools between the Mall and the Conservatory, drained now due to the frigid January weather. There were a few others out for midday walks, but not many. The wind blew steadily out of the northwest, and the rime on the puddles was not melting, even in the bright sunlight.
He carried a rectangular leather briefcase, in which the GPS unit was taped to the bottom. He also had a Washington Post and a deli sandwich in a white bag. His goal was to get as close to the Capitol grounds as the security arrangements allowed, walk to the northwest corner of the circular walks on the Capitol lawns, and take a reading. He’d obtained a current tourist map of the federal monuments area, which he’d taped to the wall in the master bedroom. He’d drawn a straight line on it between his town house and the west portico of the Capitol. Extending that line in the northwest direction bisected the corner of the lawns. The straight line gave him his firing azimuth in relation to true north. What he was trying to calculate was the actual range, which, in turn, would determine the elevation angle for firing. Ideally, he would walk up to the west portico steps and take a reading, but the entire western lawn area had been blocked off with barriers, and there were visible police patrols all around the Capitol grounds.
Which meant he would have to triangulate the problem. He’d take a reading at the northwest corner, then walk east on Constitution Avenue, which was still open to public access, and take another reading when the west facade of the Capitol lined up on a north-south axis. Then he would walk all the way around the Capitol,
going behind the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress buildings, and do the same thing on the south side of the Capitol grounds. Draw a line between those two points, and where that line intersected the firing azimuth would be the target coordinates. He had a handheld calculator, which would give him the firing range once he entered the target coordinates and those for his townhouse. He would then check this solution against what Mutaib sent him.
He opened the briefcase, checked to make sure the GPS unit was turned on and in sync with its satellites, and then took out his newspaper and sandwich. Over the next fifteen minutes, he saw two police units making a continuous car patrol along the streets that boxed the Capitol complex: First Street, SW, First Street, SE, Constitution Avenue, and Independence Avenue. The police cars were simply driving in a big revolution around and around the Capitol square. He looked hard for video cameras, but he couldn’t see any in his immediate vicinity, although he knew there had to be some up nearer the Conservatory. Anticipating that he would not be able to stop on the street, open the briefcase, and take GPS readings in full view of the security forces, he’d broken a pencil into two pieces. He’d taped the eraser end to the button that commanded the GPS unit to enter a way point. He’d cut a small hole in the narrow top of the briefcase, under the handle, and jammed the other end of the pencil into that hole. Now when he wanted to enter a way point, he simply had to push on the pencil at the top to make contact, once for each entry. If anyone stopped him and asked to inspect the briefcase, he might be in trouble, although there was space for him to push the pencil all the way through into the briefcase if he had to. This little excursion was dangerous. But he wasn’t willing to depend entirely on the Arab for the most crucial bit of targeting information.
He finished the sandwich and then pretended to read his paper for another ten minutes. No one seemed the least bit interested in him, although he could barely make out the blur of faces in the patrol cars two blocks away. Time to go. He stuffed the newspaper sections loosely into the briefcase, placing them on top of the taped-down GPS unit, put the sandwich wrappings on top of that, made sure the pencil stub was in position, and closed it up.
The first two way points went in without a hitch. He stopped for just a second to push on the pencil, heard the tiny beep from inside the case, and then continued walking. A passing police car slowed momentarily as he stood on the corner of Constitution and First Street, NE, but then it made a right turn and headed down in front of the Capitol. He actually nodded at the policewoman, who was looking at him, and she smiled and nodded back. He crossed First Street and then walked two more blocks east before turning south to get behind the Supreme Court and Library of Congress buildings. He knew he had a decision to make: That woman had seen him on the corner. If she saw him again down on Independence, would she and her partner stop? Search him? Should he wait a half hour, then continue his circle of the Capitol? Or perhaps come back in two or three hours to get the bottom half of the coordinates? By that time, they might have ended their tour of duty. But no, the marble delivery was scheduled for today. He had to finish it now and get back.
He continued walking, pulling his coat tighter as he finally turned west onto Independence Avenue and faced into the wind. There were more barriers down here on this side, and a collection of telephone company trucks with jib cranes mounted on the back were parked on the little street between the two House office buildings. Four police cars were parked together behind the line of trucks, and he could see a knot of cops huddling against the back of one of the trucks. He walked a little faster now, head down into the wind, his homburg pulled low over his forehead, while he kept an eye out for police cars. He’d spotted half a dozen security cameras mounted on telephone poles.
As he drew abreast of his line, one-third of the way along the Rayburn House Office Building, he saw a police car approaching from the west on the other side of Independence Avenue, cruising slowly. Same one, or the second one? He dared not look at them. He came up on his line and pushed the pencil, not stopping this time, and then stepped up the pace a little as he went down the sidewalk toward the Mall. But that passing police car had flipped on its blue lights and was making a deliberate U-turn in the middle of Independence, scattering traffic. He swore but kept walking, pretending to be oblivious as he pushed the pencil all the way through to the inside, evoking several beeps from the GPS unit. He had the Walther in his waistband, but he couldn’t use it here, not with all these police. The cruiser drew abreast of him along the curb, pointed the wrong way in traffic, and stopped. He kept walking, and the car started up again while the driver rolled down his window.
“Excuse me, sir?” the driver called.
Mouth dry, Heismann stopped and cupped his hand behind his ear, but he did not approach the car. The driver put the car in park and started to get out, as did his partner. His heart sank: It was the same woman who’d nodded at him on the other side of the Capitol. She had to wait for passing cars before opening her door.
“Sir, may I ask what you’re doing down here this afternoon?”
Heismann made a snap decision and answered in heavily accented English. “A valk, mein Herr,” he said in his best old-man voice. “The office, much too hot, ya?”
“Kinda cold for a walk, isn’t it?” the driver asked. He was young, his uniform didn’t fit very well at all, and he didn’t have his coat on. A probationer perhaps? The woman officer was standing behind the unit, in a position to react if Heismann did something unexpected. A veteran’s move.
“In Chermany, dis is eine nice spring day, Herr Offizier,” Heismann said, still smiling. He pointed up toward the Capitol. “Dis is vhere zey vill make ze new president, ya?”
“Uh, yes, sir, it is. What you got in the briefcase?”
“Ein Zeitung. Ze newspaper only.” He partially opened the briefcase to show them, clutching at the sandwich wrappings and newspaper sections, which immediately began to ruffle in the wind. He could feel the small lump of the GPS unit beneath his gloved hand. He saw the woman put her hand on the butt of her service revolver when he opened the case, but then she relaxed. The sandwich wrapping slipped out of his fingers and blew into the street. He clucked in dismay and then closed the briefcase to prevent any more litter from escaping.
“ID,” the woman prompted in a bored voice from behind the car.
“Oh, yeah,” the rookie said. “Sir, could we see some ID, please?”
“Ya, ya,” Heismann said quickly. He put the briefcase down on the sidewalk, extracted his Hodler passport, and stepped over to the curb to hand it to the young policeman. The cop looked it over, then got out his notebook and wrote down the name and the number of the passport before handing it back.
“Ist verboten?” Heismann asked, gesturing to include the street. “One cannot valk hier?”
“Not yet, but pretty soon, sir,” said the rookie, putting away his notebook. He was shivering in the icy wind, his white shirt offering no protection. The woman sauntered back to her side of the car, waited for more traffic to pass, and got back in.
“Well, you have a nice day, sir,” the rookie said. “Enjoy your stay here in Washington.”
Heismann bobbed his head deferentially and then picked up the briefcase as the cop car made another U-turn, turned off its blue strobe lights, and resumed what had to be the most boring patrol in the city.
Heismann drew a very deep breath and started walking again. A nice day, he thought. I will show you a nice day. Soon, very soon. He had planned to turn south when he got to the Mall proper, to slant back toward his town house. But now he decided to keep walking west, out onto the Mall, until he was completely out of sight of all the police surrounding Capitol Hill. He could take the Metro back to Eastern Market. No more nice walks at noon.
So, the city police now had his name and passport number. There would be a report, of course, but probably one of many as the city police clamped down the Capitol Hill area. He’d had the impression that the woman officer had made the stop more i
n order to train the younger officer than because she was truly suspicious of the old man and his briefcase. And this disguise had helped. If he’d come out with no disguise at all, one of their tactical squads would have had him on the ground the first time he walked in front of a video camera. The question now was, What would they do about the report? One report among many, yet another foreigner gawking at the Capitol. Surely there were thousands of such people. Had a briefcase, but there was nothing in it but his newspaper and his lunch bag. A non-event, to use the Ammie vernacular.
But still…He had used the name Hodler to purchase the vehicle. Interpol had reported the name Hodler to the federal police. And now there was a Hodler walking around the Capitol. Was there any one central organization collating all these reports? There was one department that was supposed to be doing that, but Mutaib had assured him that it was absorbed in sorting out the important things, such as budgets, committee prerogatives, parking and office space.
Still…
He frowned, pulled his coat tighter around him, and walked faster. Perhaps a complication, but not fatal. And he had his targeting data.
Swamp had talked to twenty-seven realtors by the time Mary called and said that Mr. McNamara had just come from a meeting and wanted to see him. Uh-oh, Swamp thought. He told her he’d be right down, and then he walked over to Gary’s cubicle. It was 2:30.
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