Under Siege (51 page)

Silence.

Total silence. Like a tomb.

He wanted to talk, taunt Freeman about Ike, make the bastard suffer before he died. But he knew better. He stood silently, listening and trying to breathe slowly and noiselessly.

He was standing like that when he heard the explosion just behind him and felt the numbing shock of the bullet rip into him.

Harrison staggered. He dropped the Uzi and went to his hands and knees.

Something grabbed his throat and squeezed viciously. Mcationally had come down the staircase from above.

“y got him, Ruben, I got him!”

His neck-he couldn’t breathe …

Ford reached back, groping desperately. His hand found its tp@et and he grabbed all he could get and pulled with all his strength.

Screaming, Freeman Mcationally released his neck hold as Ford twisted and squeezed and tore, trying to rip his balls off. Screaming high and loud in unbearable pain as Harrison Ronald filled his lungs and physically lifted the man with his right hand as he levered himself up.

Harrison got his left hand on Mcationally’s neck and pushed him back against the wall, then smashed his head again as he tried to literally rip the man’s testicles from his body.

The scream was choked off in Mcationally’s throat. Another smash into the wall and Ford lost his giip. He spun the man to a better angle and drew back his right hand to smash his larynx, just as someone arrived and fired a weapon.

Ford threw Freeman aside and lunged. The weapon flew and his fist connected with something soft. He struck savagely, again and again and again as hard as he could until the man he was pummeling went limp.

He was losing blood. He could feel the wetness. And he weakening.

Neither of the other two men moved.

He fumbled in his pocket for the little penlight he had taken from Tony Anselmo. When was that?

Ruben Mcationally was apparently dead, his nose bone rammed up between his eyes. Freeman’s eyes stared at nothing, refused to focus.

Harrison Ronald felt Freeman’s carotid artery. No heartbeat.

Furious, he rolled him over. A bullet dead center in the back, right between the shoulder blades. Shot by his own brother!

“You … you … you . .

Ford was also hit in the back and he knew it. Unless he got medical attention quickly he would probably bleed to death, hemorrhage into a lung or something.

“You…… he told Freeman’s frozen face, then couldn’t think of anything to add. A wave of pain and nausea swept over him.

“Oh God, help me.” He got to his feet and started down the stairs, then tripped and almost fell. The flashlight hit the concrete and broke. It wasn’t much of a light anyway. He kept going.

“God, forgive me for … for … please forgive me.”

He tripped over a body and fell down the last flight of stairs. He lay there in the darkness with death creeping over him.

“No!

Somehow he got to his feet and saw the light coming through the door to the guard’s office a hundred feet away. He staggered in that direction.

The man behind the equipment box against the south wall was silent. Unconscious or dead. At least Ford didn’t hear him as he shuffled by.

He got the phone off the hook and punched 91 1. “Sanitary Bakery warehouse,” he told the operator as he threw the switch to electrically unlock the front door. “The address and your name, please!” she said.

His legs were shaking and he was having trouble seeing. “Send the FBI and an ambulance. Better hurry. FBI …” The phone slipped out of his grasp and he was falling. “I’m dying,” he said. Then the blackness swept over him.

The subway and the buses didn’t operate beyond the beltway on Wednesday morning, and tens of thousands of suburban commuters didn’t bear the news on television or radio. Infuriated, many who normally rode to work on public transport tried to join the hordes who drove. This was a serious mistake. Troops and state policemen had blocked every beltway entrance to Washington and were making all vehicles attempting to enter or leave the District turn around. Only lawenforcement officers, people with military ID’S, and emergency vehicles were being allowed to pass. Although many of those who normally worked in the city heard the news before they left their homes and consequently decided to stay home, the traffic jams that morning were monumental, even by Southern California standards.

All flights to and from National Airport were canceled. The trains and intercity buses were not running. Washington was isolated and troops patrolled the streets.

Not many troops at first. The National Guard was still mobilizing and had less than twenty-five percent of their men on duty. Regular army troops began arriving at three a.m. on C-141’s and C-5’s at Andrews Air Force Base. General Hayden Land had ordered in a division of infantry and two regiments of armored cavalry. It would take almost

irty-six hours to get all the men and their equipment to hington.

During the night the VicePresident’s original commitment to guard major public buildings had evolved into a show of overwhelming force. The plan recommended to General Land by the Joint Staff had been approved by the White House. No White House staffer wanted to be the first to say “enough,” not when the primary criticism that continued violence would stimulate would be that the government had not done enough to prevent it. So the more-is-better recommendations of Jake Grafton and his group had been adopted all the way up the line.

By ten a.m. tanks and armored personnel carriers were parked near the major government buildings in the downtown area. By noon they were in front of every hospital in town. By two p.m. every traffic circle in the District had a tank parked in the flower beds beside the statue. The olive-drab monsters sat in pairs upon the Mall, the diesel engines idling in the chill December wind as the crews stood nearby drinking coffee from disposable cups and looking with wide eyes at the sprawling buildings bathed in the weak winter sun. The men were dressed for the weather but they were still cold. Last night they had been in Georgia. They indulged themselves in a great deal of arm swinging and jogging in place.

At nine a.m. the VicePresident met with a delegation of two dozen congressmen and senators in the East Room of the White House. It was not a happy meeting. Legislators who lived outside the beltway were of course not present. Their colleagues demanded that representatives, senators, and members of their staffs have access through military lines.

VicePresident Quayle instantly agreed. “This,” he explained, “was a glitch no one thought of last night.”

“There’s a hell of a lot of things you people never thought of last night,” Senator Bob Cherry thundered. “Food-how are grocery trucks going to get into the city? How are sick people going to get in and out? Critical medical supplies?

The radio says there are thousands of people stranded at National Airport and Union Station. Damn it, you can’t just surgically remove this city from the rest of the United States and expect it to keep breathing. Won’t happen.”

“It’ll only be until we can thoroughly search the city for terrorists,” Quayle explained, looking from face to face. “Surely everyone can see the necessity for extraordinary measures.”

“We gotta do something, was someone muttered.

“Something won’t hack it,” Cherry boomed. “This military idea is half-baked. Won’t work. Why does anybody think a bunch of kids wearing uniforms and carrying ri es can do what the FBI can’t?”

“This may not work,” Dan Quayle acknowledged. “But we’re going to try it for lack of something better. We’ve got to stop the terrorism and violence. Stop it dead, once and for all. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“But you can’t just rip the Constitution inffconfetti,” Cherry groused. “What about people’s rights?”

“Senator,” Quayle began patiently, “I’m well aware that Christmas is six days away and kids aren’t out of school, and some people are being prevented from going to work and earning a living. I know this measure is a financial hardship on many and an outright disaster for others. My wife reminded me this morning that many employers cannot afford to pay their employees if they aren’t working and a lot of those who can afford it won’t bother. I know this measure is a real hardship on many. Still, it’s necessary.”

“In your judgment,” Cherry said crossly. “In my judgment,” Quayle echoed, irritated with Cherry and all of them. He had been in Washington long enough to learn that there was nothing fair about politics: if ordering in the National Guard and the Army turned out to be ineffective or a disaster, he would be blamed; yet if the measure worked and the terrorists were apprehended, the advisors and staff would get all the credit for convincing Dan Quayle, the humbling fool, to do the right thing.

“You should have asked the advice of the senior members of Congress before you called in the military,” Cherry

inued, not yet ready to let it lie. “I, for one, am more a little peeved that we get summoned like ladies in ng to come over here and listen to edicts from the throne.”

Dan Quayle lost his temper. “Goddammit, Senator, everybody in this room knew about this yesterday. I have assumed the President’s responsibilities during his disability and I am not going to run the presidency by committee.”

“I’m not suggesting-was Cherry began, but Quayle ignored him and began talking into the microphone on the podium while referring to notes:

“I have appointed an independent nonpartisan presidential commission to oversee federal efforts to apprehend the people responsible for the atrocities of these past few days. This will be announced to the press as soon as we finish here. The commission will work closely with all the federal agencies involved to investigate all matters connected with these crimes. I want all the facts investigated and laid before the public. The commission will have the authority to pursue any line of inquiry it feels is germane. I will send a message to Congress today asking for a special appropriation so the commission can immediately hire staff and get to work. I certainly hope Congress will see fit to act quickly. I don’t want anybody shouting cover-up when all the dust settles.

“Mr. Dorfman, please read the names.”

Will Dorfman somehow didn’t look his nasty, mean little self, Congresswoman Samantha Strader noted with a raised eyebrow. The troll actually looked human this morningharried, a touch of exhaustion.

Dorfman read the list. The first name was that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Harlan Longstreet. That was fitting. Chief Justice Earl Warren had directed the inquiry into John F. Kennedy’s assassination, but in spite of herculean efforts on the part of the investigators, nitpickers and conspiracy fanatics were still unsatisfied over twenty-five years later. Perhaps that was inevitable.

The eighth name Dorfman read was Sam Strader. When Dorfman had telephoned and asked her to serve she had

been momentarily at a loss for words, a rare experience, not to be savored. “Why me?” she asked.

“Quayle wants this commission to be nonpartisan, and the only way we know to do that is to get people from all across the political spectrum to serve.”

She mulled it for three seconds. Yes. Now, standing here watching Danny the Dork prove that brains are not a prerequisite for public office, she was sure she had made the right decision.

She would have a delicious time tormenting those male chauvinist fascists at the FBI who, God knew, richly deserved far worse. More importantly, she would be able to make the blind world see that emperor Quayle wore no pants-this military witch hunt for someone to pin the blame on had all the earmarks of a debacle in the makingand Last, but certainly not least, tens of millions of voters who had never heard of Samantha Strader soon would.

There was no reason that she shouldn’t be the next president. After all, Quayle had the charisma of a fish. The real problem was getting the Democratic nomination, and if she could show what a woman could do to clean up this terrorist mess, she would have a leg up.

All in all, this was going to be an enjoyable, interesting project. As usual, Samantha Strader had not a scintilla of self-doubt: she believed in herself and her opinions with a white-hot zeal that would have looked good on a messiah. Despite the seriousness of the occasion Strader indulged herself in a luxurious grin.

Special Agent Thomas F. Hooper found his colleague Freddy Murray lounging beside the nurse’s station outside the intensive care unit. “How is he?”

“Coming out of it. It’ll be a few more hours. He surprised the surgeons. They thought he’d die on the table.”

“Seven dead men in the warehouse and one in his room at Quantico. The maid found the body an hour ago when she went in to change the sheets. The lab guys are trying to put it all together and figure out who everybody is.”

“I got ten bucks that says he killed them all.”

‘ationo W.”

Murray shook his head. “Funny, isn’t it? Ten comwiretaps, depositions, surveillance cameras, the whole enchilada-and all we got to show for it are seven corpses.”

They stood silently, listening to the sounds of the hospital, the clicking, hissing, sucking, squeaking, groaning noises.

“The stiff in Harrison’s room at Quantico is white. Not sure yet, but one of the agents thinks it’s Tony Anselmo.” con’From New York?”

‘allyeah.”

“We let this go on too long,” Freddy Murray said after a bit. “We should’ve busted Freeman’s bunch in September.”

“Don’t give me that! We didn’t have enough in Septemher.”

“We let this go on too long,” Freddy repeated stubbornly.

Tom Hooper let it he. “Let’s go sit down someplace. I only had three hours” sleep.”

They collapsed on the sofa in the ICU waiting room, two doors down the hall. Hooper sighed, then extracted a sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to Freddy. “Ever seen this guy before?”

Freddy unfolded the paper. It was a copy of an artist’s rendering of a face. A very plain face. At the bottom of the sheet this information appeared: “White male, approximately forty years of age, five feet nine or ten inches, clean shaven, short dark hair, dark eyes.”