Under Siege

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

When darkness fell the number of incidents increased. The communications room at the armory became a beehive of activity as reports of shootings and angry crowds poured in over the radios.

At the Executive Office Building General Land conferred with the Vice-President. Lacking any other options, they agreed that more troops would be brought in and sent to each trouble spot. General Land ordered in a battalion that was on standby at Andrews Air Force Base.

Jake Grafton was at the armory poring over a map trying to learn which areas had been searched and which had not when he was called to the telephone.

“Captain, Special Agent Hooper.”

“Yes.”

“I thought you’d like to know. We’ve received over a dozen tentative identifications of the artist’s conception of the assassin. Two in the Washington area and others from all over. We’re checking all of them. But I thought you might want to swing by the local addresses. The agents are still there. You ready to copy?”

“Go ahead.” Jake got out his pen.

When the captain had copied and read back both addresses, Hooper said, “I think the most likely ID is one out of New Mexico. Very definite. From a game warden and a gas station proprietor. They think the guy is a rancher out there and a suspected long-time poacher. Real good with firearms. Ran a guide service for out-of-state high rollers for the last seven or eight hunting seasons. A deputy sheriff went out to his ranch this afternoon and looked around. No one there. Doesn’t appear to have been anyone there for a week or so.”

“What’s the name?”

“Charon. Henry Charon. The New Mexico Department of Motor Vehicles gives his date of birth as March 6, 1952. We’ve already got a fax of the driver’s license photo. I’ve seen it. This could be our guy. We’ve got agents showing it to our witness now.”

“Can I get some copies?”

“The agents checking out the local reports have copies. They’ll give. you one. We’ll send some over to the armory as soon as we can.”

“Like maybe a couple thousand of them.”

“Well, we’ll do what we can. Gonna take a little while.”

“As soon as you can.”

“Sure.”

“How about the national crime computer? This guy have a record or some warrants?”

“We tried. Didn’t get a hit. We’re checking.”

“Thanks for the call, Hooper.”

“Yeah.”

The nearest address was an apartment building on Georgetown Avenue. Jack Yocke drove. When they were stopped at a roadblock, he showed a pass signed by General Greer while Jake, Toad, and Rita displayed their green military ID cards. The sergeant examined the ID card photos and flashed a light in each of the officers’ faces. Two men, both with M-16s leveled, stood where they could shoot past the sergeant.

“You may go on through, sir,” the sergeant said as he saluted. Jake returned the salute as Yocke fed gas.

There was no parking place in front of the building, so Yocke double-parked. “A license to steal,” he gloated.

“Toad, write him a citation,” Jake said before he slammed the door.

The FBI agents were still talking to the apartment manager. Jake introduced himself. One of the agents took him out in the hall. He produced a sheet of fax paper with a picture in the middle. Much bigger than the little photo on a driver’s license, the picture still had the same look: a man staring straight at the camera, his nose slightly distorted by the lens.

“The lady in here says this guy has been a tenant for about a month. We’re waiting for a search warrant to arrive.”

“But I thought this was the New Mexico driver’s license photo?”

“It is. It’s the same guy.”

“Henry Charon.”

“Interesting name. But not the one he used here. Called himself Sam Donally. She asked to see a driver’s license when he signed the lease. She thinks it was Virginia, but isn’t sure. She didn’t write down the number. We’re running Virginia DMV now. Without a date of birth it’ll take a little time.”

“Maybe he used the same date of birth. Easier to remember.”

“Maybe.”

“When did she last see him?”

“Four days or so ago. But she’s only seen him about eight or ten times since he rented the apartment. He goes away for several days at a time. Says he does consulting work for the government. And — this is funny — of the ten other apartments in this building, six of the tenants are here — and not one can positively identify either the photo or the drawing. Three thought it might be him, but only after I suggested that it might be.”

“The manager expect him back at any definite time?”

“Whenever. He never says.”

“So he could just come waltzing in any ol’ time?”

“It’s possible.”

“Any chance he’s upstairs now?”

“I went up on the fire escape fifteen minutes ago and peeked in. Place looks empty.”

Jake stared at the picture. The face was regular, the features quite average but arranged in such a way that no one would ever call the owner handsome. He looked … it was hard to say. He looked, Jake decided, like everybody else. It was as if the owner of that face had no personality of his own. The eyes stared out, slightly bored, promising nothing. Not great intelligence, not wit, not … Nothing was hidden behind the smooth brow, the calm, unemotional features.

Wrong. Everything was hidden.

He took a copy of the artist’s rendering from his pocket and held it beside the photo. Well, it was and it wasn’t.

“Thanks,” Jake Grafton told the agent.

In the car he showed the picture to the others. They immediately whipped out their copies of the line drawing to compare.

“Oh yes,” Rita said. “It’s him. It’s the same man.”

“No, it isn’t,” said her husband. “It could be, perhaps, but …”

“Let’s go,” Jake told Yocke. “The place on Q Street.”

With traffic practically nonexistent, Yocke made excellent time. He ran every red light after merely slowing for a look. They drove past the Lafayette Circle address, Toad pointed out the error, and Yocke circled the block.

There was a parking place clearly visible fifty feet down the street, but Yocke double-parked in front of the main entrance. He gave Grafton a bland, slightly smug smile.

The captain sighed and got out of the car. “Toad, phone the armory and find out what’s happening.”

While the lieutenant used the telephone inside, Jake conferred with another agent in the hall. He was back in the car waiting when Toad came down the steps.

“Riots,” Toad reported. “The lid is coming off.”

“Any sign of the terrorists?”

“Nothing yet.”

“Let’s go back to the armory,” Jake told Yocke and tapped the dashboard.

“Aye aye, sir. What did the manager say?”

“Wasn’t the manager. He’s gone for the holidays. It was one of the tenants. Identifies both pictures. Says the guy called himself Smithson. He couldn’t remember the first name. Been here about a month.”

“Only one tenant?” Rita asked. “What about all the others?”

“Just one. No one else is sure. The agents are going door to door.”

“You’d think if one person saw him and was sure, they all would at least recognize the photo.”

“You’d think,” Jake Grafton agreed.

Assume these people are correct. Assume Henry Charon — Smithson — Sam Donally were all one and the same man. He had two apartments. No, make that at least two. What if he had three? Or four?

Grafton looked up at the buildings the car drove past. He could be up there right now, watching the street. But why had so few people seen him?

Let’s assume the man is really Henry Charon from New Mexico. He comes to town, takes several apartments. Why? Because the hotels and motels were the very first places the police checked. Yet the minute his picture ran in the paper, he would have to abandon all the apartments. Wouldn’t he? But that was a bad break. Unexpected. He worked like hell to ensure there would be no witnesses. But he was seen. That was always a possibility.

Apartments. He rented apartments about a month ago. The conclusion was inescapable — the attempt on the President’s life was very carefully planned. Most attempts to kill the President were made by emotionally disturbed individuals, Jake knew, screwballs who acted on a sudden impulse when an opportunity presented itself. Charon or Smithson or Donally had carefully planned, bided his time. And he should have succeeded. This was the nightmare the Secret Service worked to foil — the professional killer who stalked his prey, the hunter of men.

It fitted. Charon was a poacher and a professional hunting guide. He knew firearms. He could shoot.

A hunter. A man at home outdoors.

Well, there were the alleys and the railroad yards. Maybe the places under bridges and overpasses where the bums hang out.

No. He would be seen and remembered in all those areas unless he went to great pains to look like a derelict. And to pass freely in the world of working people and tourists that was the rest of Washington, he would have to be groomed and dressed appropriately.

A master of disguise, perhaps? A quick change artist?

Jake thought not.

Was he still in Washington? Well, the assumption was that all these long-range shootings were done by one man, and if so, there appeared to be no obvious reason why he should have left. Unless he’s finished what he came to do or decided to abandon the rest of his plan. Questions — there were too many unanswered questions.

The car entered one of Washington’s traffic circles. As Yocke piloted the car around Jake Grafton caught sight of the statue amidst the trees and evergreens. These little parks, he thought, were about as close to the outdoors as the residents of Washington ever get.

Perhaps a camper, mounted on a pickup bed. Maybe one of those vacation cruisers with the little toilet and the propane stove. Surely Henry Charon from New Mexico would be at home in something like that.

What else? He was missing something. Henry Charon, a hunter and small rancher from New Mexico. He comes to the big city and only three people see him? See and remember.

The problem, Jake thought, was that he himself had lived too long in cities. He didn’t see the city as Charon did, as alien territory.

No, he had that wrong. Charon saw the city precisely as he saw the forests and mountains. A hunting ground.

But where did that fact take him? Jake Grafton didn’t know.

The conversation among his fellow passengers caught his attention now. “Why is it,” Rita asked Jack Yocke, “that the newspapers and television give the impression that the whole city is in flames, with a million people rioting in the street? My mother called me last night in a panic.”

“The television people are in show biz,” Yocke told her lightly.

“Have there been any more ‘communiqués’ from Aldana’s friends in Colombia?” Toad asked.

“Yeah,” said Yocke. “They say they’re going to blow up some airliners. They’re going to bring this nation to its knees, they say. It’s probably on TV right now. Be in tomorrow’s paper.”

Jake Grafton sat in glum silence. The aftermath of all this … God only knew. But, he suspected, the plight of the desperately hopeless, all those people without the education or pluck to make it in America — the natural prey of the Chano Aldanas — would be ignored in the hue and cry. Not that the poor were the sole consumers of illegal drugs or even the majority. Oh no. But they were the core of the problem, the loyal consumer base unaffected by changing fashion or public education. The poor were the least likely to get treatment, the least likely to have the social and financial and spiritual assets to escape the downward spiral of addiction, crime, and early death.

“We’re going to have to legalize dope,” Yocke said under his breath.

This comment produced an outburst from both Toad and Rita. Jake silenced them curtly. They were supposed to be fighting alligators: someone else was going to have to figure out a way to drain the swamp.

The situation room at the armory was packed with people, including General Land and his flag aides. Jake found time to quickly brief the chairman on the search for the assassin, then he got out of the way.

He stood there watching the brass do the math required to figure out how long it would take to search all the remainder of the city with the troops available. They knew as well as Jake that the people they were after might just walk a half block to a building that had already been searched.

General Land was acutely conscious of that possibility. He wanted street patrols to stop and examine the IDs of any suspicious characters. The D.C. police could help, but they had limited manpower.

The military presence was inexorably rising and would continue to rise until the terrorists were found. If they were here to be found. Score one for the narco-terrorists, Jake Grafton thought. If they had accomplished nothing else, the people inside the beltway were going to get a real taste of military dictatorship.

While these thoughts were going through Grafton’s mind, Senator Bob Cherry and three other senators were voicing them on national television. Cherry dropped the bombshell toward the end of the program. Chano Aldana should be sent back to Colombia, he said, and then the terrorism would stop.

“The people of Washington, the people of this nation, should not have to submit to being wounded, maimed, and murdered just so the administration can have the satisfaction of prosecuting Mr. Aldana. The citizens huddle in their houses while the military makes war in the streets. We all admire persistence in the face of adversity, but at some point dogged insistence on observing all the arcane niceties of the law becomes foolhardy. Atrocities, bombings, assassinations — how much do we have to endure here in Northern Colombia? What price in blood and flesh does Dan Quayle think we should pay for Aldana’s prosecution?”

Watching Cherry on a portable television in an armory office, Toad Tarkington muttered to Jack Yocke, “He’s got a talent for rhetorical questions, doesn’t he?”

“It’s taken him far,” Yocke replied.

Twenty minutes later Jake Grafton saw the map. It had been there for days and three enlisted men were diligently annotating it with pins and little symbols, but when someone stepped out of his way, suddenly it was hanging on the wall in his full view. And the thing he saw as he looked at it were all the areas that were not divided into blocks to be searched. For the first time he saw the open areas.

It was possible. Not very likely, but possible.

“General Greer, do you have a company I can borrow?”

The major general looked at him askance. “A company?” he growled. He didn’t think much of naval officers — the damned boat drivers usually had only the vaguest grasp of real war, the land war. Just now he swallowed his prejudices. Grafton, he knew, was different. Liaison with the Joint Staff, Grafton had never tried to tell him how to do his job. Unlike fifty or so flag officers of all services who had been wasting huge chunks of his time with unsolicited advice.

“Yessir. A couple hundred troops. I want to walk them through Rock Creek Park.”

The company commander lined his troops up in a parking lot of RFK Stadium across the street from the armory. As the sergeants counted noses and checked gear, Jake turned to Toad. “Go get rifles and a couple extra magazines for me, you, and Rita. And three walkie-talkies.”

“What about Yocke?”

“He’s a civilian.” Right now the reporter was inside in the command post taking notes. If he didn’t get out here on the double he was going to be left behind. His problem.

“Aye aye, sir,” Tarkington said and trotted toward the armory.

The company commander, an army captain, asked Jake if he wanted to address the troops.

“No, you do it. Tell them we are going to be hunting a killer, the man who shot down the President’s helicopter. They are to take their time, go slowly, use their flashlights. We’ll do the Rock Creek Country Club first.”

“You want this man alive, sir?”

“I’ll take him any way I can get him. I don’t want any of your men killed trying to capture him. Anybody who fails to stop when challenged, they can shoot.”

“Your responsibility, sir?”

“My responsibility.”

The army officer saluted and went to talk to his men.

Ten minutes later, with the enlisted soldiers aboard the trucks, the officers consulted the maps. Just as Jake and the two navy lieutenants climbed into their car, Jack Yocke came running.

“Welcome to the party,” Toad told him.

The convoy moved slowly through the streets. Pedestrians were streaming in and out of the grocery stores, but the parking lots and streets lacked the usual glut of automobiles. The effect was jarring.

“I hear the stores are doing a land office business in liquor and contraceptives,” Yocke remarked.

“Can’t watch television all the time,” Toad agreed.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Rita said. “The glare of the boob tube doesn’t seem to affect your libido.”

Jake Grafton sighed.

Senator Cherry and his aide drove back to the Senate office building in Cherry’s car. Like many of the senators and congressmen trapped in Washington this close to the holidays — Cherry had told the majority leader a week ago that the chambers should adjourn early for Christmas and had been ignored — he had been issued a vehicle pass by the White House staff.

Two FBI agents were waiting in the hall outside Cherry’s office suite.

Hooper he remembered. The other agent was named Murray. “Your door’s locked,” one of them noted.

“That’s obvious,” Cherry thundered derisively. “They gave me one lousy pass for one vehicle and I have to drive the damn thing. You think my receptionist is going to walk ten miles through the streets of this open sewer to unlock the door so you can have a nice place to wait?”

“No, sir.”

The aide unlocked the door and the agents followed the senator into his office. After he had flipped on the lights and settled behind his desk, Cherry boomed, “Well?”

“Senator, we’re trying to get a handle on the activities of a certain lawyer here in the District, fellow named T. Jefferson Brody.”

Bob Cherry stared at them.

“It seems he made some campaign contributions that—”

“Did the White House send you over here?”

“No, sir. As I said, we’re—”

“You just got a call from Will Dorfman, didn’t you? Dorfman is trying to shut me up. That asshole! Well, it won’t work! I am going to continue to say what has to be said. If Dorfman doesn’t like it he can stick—”

“I haven’t talked to anybody at the White House, Senator,” Tom Hooper said with force. “I’m asking you, do you know T. Jefferson Brody?”

“I’ve met him, yes. I’ve met a lot of people in Washington, Mister … I’ve forgotten your name.”

“Hooper.”

“Hooper. I’m a U.S. senator. I meet people at parties, at dinners, they stream into this office by the hundreds. Just here in Washington I must have met ten thousand people in the last ten years. In Florida—”

“Brody. Jefferson Brody. He makes political contributions on behalf of people who want influence. Has he made any contributions to your campaign or any of your PACs?”

“I resent your implication, sir! You are implying that Jefferson Brody or someone owns a piece of me! You can haul your little tin badge right on out that—”

“I’m not implying anything, sir,” Hooper said without a trace of irritation. He had dealt with these elected apostles on numerous occasions in the past. It was one of the least pleasant aspects of his job. “I’m trying to conduct an investigation into the activities of T. Jefferson Brody. If you don’t want to answer questions or cooperate, your campaign finance statements are a matter of public record. We’ll get them.”

“I’m perfectly willing to cooperate with the FBI,” Cherry said civilly. “But your timing couldn’t be more … curious, shall we say? I appear on network television and take a strong stand against the administration about a matter of public concern. An hour later when I get back to the office the FBI is waiting for me. Nobody from the White House called you, you say. But what about your superiors? Did Will Dorfman call the director?

“I’ll be blunt, gentlemen. I think Dorfman is playing hardball, trying to use the FBI to silence someone who is speaking out against the administration’s handling of this terrorism debacle. I know how Dorfman plays the game. Next he’ll start telling lies about me. He’s done it before. He’s good at it. The slander, the invidious lie — those are Dorfman’s weapons against Bush and Quayle’s enemies.

“Now you go back and tell your superiors that Bob Cherry can’t be muzzled. You tell the director to call Dorfman and tell him Bob Cherry didn’t scare. No doubt that perverted little troglodyte will think of a filthy lie and find an ear to pour it into. But I’m going to keep telling the truth about Dithering Danny and that parasite Dorfman until the day I die.

“Now get out. Get out of my office.”

Hooper and Murray went.

With the door closed, Bob Cherry sat for a minute or two lost in thought. Automatically he reached out and rearranged the mementos on his desk, handling them and brushing off any specks of dust that might have come to rest on them. This altimeter mounted on a walnut stand — a presentation from a Florida veterans association. The gold doubloon from a Spanish treasure galleon, the baseball signed by Hank Aaron, the fifty-caliber machine-gun round on an alabaster base — all these things had been presented to him by groups of Florida citizens who appreciated his loyal service in the Senate, his sacrifices on their behalf.

He rose from his chair and went around the room looking at the photos on the wall, dusting an occasional frame with a finger and here and there straightening one. He was in every photo. He had posed with presidents, with movie idols, with famous industrialists and writers and athletes. Many of the photos bore handwritten inscriptions safely preserved forever behind nonglare glass: “To Senator Bob Cherry, a real American.” “To Bob Cherry, a friend.” “To Senator Cherry, a true friend of the American working man.” “To Florida’s own Senator Bob Cherry, who believes in America.”

After he had looked at every picture and made sure it was hanging correctly on its private nail, he lay down on the couch and closed his eyes. He would rest a while.

Going down in the elevator, Freddy Murray said, “You know, he might have gotten down off his high horse if you’d told him Freeman McNally was dead.”

“I was going to,” said Tom Hooper, “but the jerk never gave me a chance.”

From a sound sleep Henry Charon came instantly awake. He lay in the darkness listening. He could hear the drip of water — the rain had begun again just as he drifted off to sleep — and the sound of branches rustling in a gentle breeze. Charon’s eyes roamed freely in the dim half light that passed for darkness under that glowing overcast.

Something was not right. Something was out there in the night. Something that should not be there. It was very quiet. No traffic sounds at all from the road a hundred yards down the hill. No sound of aircraft overhead.

Yes. There it was again. Very faint.

He slipped out of the sleeping bag and pulled his boots on, then his sweater and waterproof parka. He reached down into the sleeping bag and retrieved the pistol.

In less than a minute he was completely dressed, the pistol in his pocket and the rifle in his hand. He swung the rucksack containing the hand grenades and ammo and the duffle bag that he would need to hide the rifle over his shoulder. Everything else he left.

Only now did Henry Charon check the luminous hands of his watch. Eleven thirty-four.

He carefully left the little cave and moved with sure, silent steps twenty feet around to his right, to a prominence where he could look and listen. He sank to the ground at the base of a tree so he would not present a clear silhouette, motionless, a part of the rock, a dark, indistinct shape in a dark, wet universe.

The glow of the city lights reflecting on the clouds was only thinly dissipated by the naked branches of the trees.

And he heard the noise again. A man, moving slowly and carefully, but moving.

Charon saw nothing. His ears told him what he wanted to know. One man, sixty or so yards away, around the slope and down a bit.

And coming this way.

Henry Charon didn’t form hypotheses about who this intruder might be or why he was here. Like the wary wild animal he was, he waited. He waited with infinite patience.

Now he got a fleeting look at the man. A soldier, judging by the helmet and the bulky shape, indistinct among the brush and trees. The man was moving slowly, warily, listening and looking.

But wait! Above on the ridge — another man. Two of them.

He turned his head ever so slowly to acquire the second man. He could hear him but that was all.

The second man was closer than the one lower on the slope. That he had gotten this close without Charon hearing him was a tribute to his skill. The first man was much clumsier.

Charon had a decision to make. Should he wait and see if these men would pass him without detecting him or should he move away? If they were hunting him, which was likely, they would check out this overhang of rock and, if they were halfway competent, find the cave and his gear.

He mulled these questions as an animal would, without consciously thinking about them, merely waiting for his instinct to tell him it was time to move.

The first man he had heard came closer, now plainly visible as he moved between the trees and rock outcrops. He was carrying a rifle in his hands.

The second man was right up the slope even with Charon, judging by the sound. Charon did not turn his head. Only his eyes moved.

“Psst. Pssst!” The hissing came from the lower man. He gestured in Charon’s direction, then said in a stage whisper, “There’s some rocks to my left.”

Charon remained frozen. The man who had whispered moved behind the tree that sheltered Charon, but he did not move to reacquire him. The man was less than a dozen feet away.

At this distance Charon could hear every step the man took. He could hear him breathing deeply, as one does when one is trying to get plenty of air and be quiet too. He could hear his clothing rustle. He could hear the gentle, rhythmic swish of the water in his canteen. He even got a faint whiff of the odor of stale cigarette smoke.

The man moved away from Charon’s back, toward the cave. Still Charon remained motionless. Slowly, ever so slowly, he rotated his head to try to acquire the man above him on the ridge. Nothing. The man was behind the trees or just over the rocky crest. In any event Charon couldn’t see him from where he had made himself a part of the earth.

A minute passed. The man behind brushed against the bushes, broke several branches.

“Billy! Billy! We got a cave here.”

Seconds passed.

“Billy! There’s a bunch of stuff in the cave.”

“Say again.”

Now the soldier behind Charon spoke normally. “There’s a cave down here with a sleeping bag and some other stuff in it. Better report.”

As the metallic sounds of a walkie-talkie became audible, Henry Charon moved. He moved straight ahead, back in the direction the men had come from. He kept low yet moved surely and silently and used the brush and trees and rocks to screen himself from the men behind him.

The voices of the two men around the cave carried. They were still audible though the words were indistinct when Charon halted beside the base of a large tree and scanned the terrain.

Other men would be coming up this slope to check out the cave. He had to get well away but he didn’t want to move onto someone who was sitting motionless. So he paused to scan and listen.

He could hear someone down the slope. The person slipped and fell heavily, then regained his feet. He moved steadily without pause, working his way upwards toward Charon. No doubt he was trying to find the cave.

Charon slipped along, staying low.

He froze when he heard the sound of a walkie-talkie. Below, to the left. Another one!

He kept going parallel with the ridge line. After several hundred yards the ridge began to curve. Perfect. The road below would also curve since it ran along the creek. Charon turned ninety degrees left and began his descent.

Through the trees he saw the glint of light reflecting on the asphalt when he was still twenty-five yards away. His progress was slow now, glacial. He flitted from tree to tree, looking and listening. It took him three minutes to get across the creek, which was small but full.

Then he got down on his stomach and crawled toward the road.

The roadside was brushy with dead weeds and briars. Charon lay prone, listening.

Nothing.

Ever so slowly he raised his head. He was beside a crooked little tree that had all its branches tilted toward the road. The bare branches formed a partial canopy that left him in deeper darkness. He scanned right and left, searching the shadows.

Another minute passed as he tried to satisfy himself that no one was nearby.

He rose to a crouch and trotted across the two-lane asphalt toward the brush beyond.

“Halt!”

The shout came from his right, a surprised, half-choked cry.

Henry Charon sprinted toward the waiting darkness.

The impact of the bullet tumbled him. He rolled once and regained his feet, his left side completely numb. He gained the brush and charged into it and kept going as a bullet slapped into a tree just above his head and the boom of a second shot rang out. He hadn’t even heard the first one.

There was no pain. Just a numbness that extended from his armpit to his hip. He could still use his left arm, but not very well. The rifle was still in his right hand. He hadn’t lost it, thank God!

He attacked the hill in front of him, driving on both feet, fighting for air, not caring about how much noise he made.

They would be coming, that he knew. He had no illusions. No more than sixty seconds had passed before he heard the swelling noise of an engine coming down the road, then the squeal of its tires as the driver braked hard to a halt. Henry Charon went up the slope with all the strength that was in him.

The soldier was so nervous when Jake Grafton got out of the car that he couldn’t stand still. He hopped from foot to foot, pointing up the slope.

“I shouted for him to halt but he didn’t so I shot and he fell and got up and kept running and I shot again and dear God …”

“Show me.”

The soldier led him to the spot where the man had fallen. Jake used his flashlight. He followed the soldier’s pointing finger.

Specks of blood on the brush. “What’s your name?”

“Specialist Garth, sir.”

“You hit him.”

Jake pointed his M-16 at the ground and fired three shots, spaced evenly apart. “You stay here,” he told the soldier, “and tell your lieutenant to get people on the streets up there.” He gestured toward the ridge he faced. “I think there’re streets and houses up there.”

“Yessir,” Specialist Garth said, still swallowing rapidly and wetting his lips. “I hope—”

“You did right. You did your duty. Tell the lieutenant.” Jake strode back to the car and tossed his hat in. “Toad, go down about fifty feet to the right. Rita, fifty feet left. We’ll go up the hill. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“What about me?” Jack Yocke wanted to know.

“Stay here with the car.” The lieutenants were trotting to their assigned position. “Better yet, drive the car around and meet us up on top.” And Jake turned and plunged into the brush.

Fifteen feet up the hill he regretted his impulse to have Yocke help. Having a car driven by an unarmed man waiting and ready for a desperate wounded man with a gun when he topped the hill wasn’t the best idea Jake had had today.

Too late Jake Grafton turned around. Yocke was already driving away.

“Damn.”

Jake used his flashlight. He held it in his left hand and held the rifle by the pistol grip in his right, ready to fire. The trail in the wet earth was plain. Occasional splotches of blood.

If luck were a lady, this guy would be lying unconscious fifty feet up the hill bleeding to death. But Grafton had long ago lost all his illusions about that fickle bitch. The wounded man was probably tough as a man could be and would keep going until he died on his feet.

He’s going to need a lot of killing, Jake Grafton told himself as he paused to scan the dark forest with his flash.

At the top of the hill was a chain-link fence topped by three strands of barbed wire. Behind it was a lawn and trees and a huge two-story house with lights in three or four of the windows. The fence was an impossible barrier for Henry Charon, who was bleeding and beginning to hurt.

He looked left and right, then went right on impulse. He moved quickly, still able to lope along although the shock of the bullet was wearing off.

The next house had a six-foot-high wooden fence, still too much for Charon. He kept going until he came to a small two-rail accent fence. He was across it and trotting across the lawn when he heard a car go by on the street.

Cars would mean police or soldiers. Charon went around the house and paused behind a huge evergreen to survey the area and catch his breath. He probed the wound with his hand. Bleeding. Behind him on the grass he could see the trail where he had come. Whoever followed would see it too.

The car that had gone by was not in sight, so Charon ran out onto the street and veered right. Pavement would show no tracks, although he was probably dripping blood.

He needed a place to hole up and dress the wound. Or to die if the wound was too bad. That was a possibility of course. He had seen it happen hundreds of times. A wounded animal would run for miles until it thought it had escaped its pursuer, then it would lie down and quietly bleed to death. Sometimes he had come up on them after they had lain down but while they were still alive. If they had lain too long they could not move. The shock and loss of blood weakened them, caused them to stiffen up so badly they couldn’t rise. He wouldn’t lie that long. He would be up and going before he got too weak or stiff.

But where?

He heard another vehicle, or perhaps the same one coming back, and darted down the first driveway he came to. The house was dark. Great.

He went around the garage and circled the house.

There might be a burglar alarm. Or a dog. He would have to take the chance.

He used the silenced pistol on the door lock. It took four shots, but finally it opened when he pushed against it with his shoulder and turned the doorknob.

He closed it behind him and stood listening. The darkness inside the house was almost total. He waited for his eyes to accommodate, then walked quietly and quickly from room to room.

Apparently empty. With the pistol in his hand he ascended the stairs.

The master bath was off the big bedroom. It lacked windows. He closed the door behind him and turned on the light.

His appearance in the mirror shocked him. The coat was sodden with blood. He stripped it carefully. God, the pain was getting bad! He had difficulty getting the sweater and shirt off, but he did.

The wound was down low, entry and exit holes about six inches apart, a couple inches above his hip point and around on his back. He could only see the entrance hole by looking in the mirror. No way of telling what was bleeding inside. If his kidney or something vital were nicked, he would eventually pass out from loss of blood and die. And that would be that.

As it was, all he could try to do was get the external bleeding stopped. And it was a bleeder.

How much blood had he lost? Easily a pint, maybe more. He felt lightheaded. There was no time to lose.

He snapped off the light and went out into the bedroom where he stripped the sheets from the bed. Back in the bathroom with the light on he used his knife to cut the sheet, then tore it into strips which he painfully and slowly wrapped around his abdomen.

This would work. If he could get the bleeding stopped he could move.

Jake Grafton followed the trail to the street. He stood there with Toad and Rita and surveyed the wet asphalt with his flashlight. The blood drops were quickly dissipating as the rain intensified.

Jake began to trot.

Jack Yocke pulled alongside. “Rita,” Jake said, “go get the captain and the troops. Get them on trucks. Hurry.”

Obediently she jumped into the car, which sped away.

A hundred yards later the blood spots were gone. Jake Grafton stopped and stood panting as he looked around.

“Where do you think he went?” Toad demanded.

“I dunno.”

Jake used the flash again, shining it on the lawns and shrubs and tree trunks. “Probably in one of these houses, but he could have kept going. We’re going to have to get the troops to surround this area and search it. If we can get them in position quickly enough, we can bag this guy.”

“You think this man is the assassin?”

Jake didn’t answer. It was a possibility. One thing was for sure — whoever it was didn’t want to stop and chat.

From the bedroom window Henry Charon saw the flashlight on the street as he searched the closet for clothes. He pulled out some men’s shirts and tried one on as he watched the two figures on the street. Much to his disgust, the man of the house was a fatty.

The second bedroom down the hall bore evidence of a male presence. A radio-controlled plane hung from the ceiling, some large posters of scantily clad pinup girls adorned the walls. Charon checked the closets. Yep. And the shirt fit. He rooted until he found a sweater and added that. The jeans were a little big, but he had a belt.

And there was a decent coat. Not a parka, but a warm one with a Gore-Tex surface.

When he had his boots back on, he went back to the master bedroom for the weapons and rucksack. Those two outside had walked fifty feet or so north and were obviously waiting.

Henry Charon had no doubt they were waiting for soldiers to arrive.

He went down the stairs and paused in the kitchen. The refrigerator. Pretty empty. Nothing but a loaf of bread and a half pack of baloney. The owners must be gone for the holidays. He stuffed the loaf in his pocket and wolfed down the baloney. The blood loss had made him ravenous. And food would help his body manufacture new blood cells.

He went into the front room and stood peeking through a crack in the drapes as he chewed and swallowed bread. He explored the bandage with his right hand. It wasn’t sodden yet, but it would be after a while. He had extra sheet strips in the duffle bag.

Time to go.

Out in the backyard with the door pressed shut, he walked down the concrete walk to the swimming pool, which was covered for the winter. He was going to have to cross the grass.

He did so. The back fence was six feet high. He threw his bags over, then jumped and hooked a heel over the top. The pain in his side almost made him fall off. He struggled, then fell over the other side.

It was several seconds before he could move. It was so pleasant lying here on the soft ground, with the rain falling gently on his face. If he could just rest, sleep maybe, let this pain subside …

He struggled upright and got the bags positioned on his shoulders just as a dog in the nearby house began to yap.

He trotted past the left side of the house and got out on the street and kept going in a long, easy, ground-covering lope.

“What’s that noise?”

“Dog barking somewhere,” Toad said. He still had perfect hearing, much better than Grafton’s.

“You stay here. Get the troops spread around, maybe out ten blocks if you have enough men.”

Jake went down along the house they were in front of, trying to figure out where that dog was that was barking.

The backyard had a pool. He walked through the grass, looking for tracks with his flashlight. His boots sank into the soft earth. He went on toward the fence. That barking dog seemed to be across it and down a house.

He saw the tracks in the wet earth. Galvanized, Jake slung the rifle on his back and swung up. It occurred to him as he went over that he could have just made a fatal mistake.

The shot never came. He stood on the other side of the fence breathing hard, trying to listen. The dents in the grass went alongside the house.

Following, he stopped at the edge of the street and listened intently. He heard the faint sound of a man running, his boots hitting the pavement.

Jake Grafton ran in that direction. He was huffing badly, overheating from too many clothes. And he was sadly out of shape.

The street turned ninety degrees right in a wide sweeping turn. On both sides of the street were houses set well back from the pavement and partially obscured by yards full of huge bushes and evergreens.

As he rounded the curve Jake saw the man ahead. And the man ahead glanced back over his shoulder and saw him. Jake tried to run faster.

The man ahead broke like a sprinter. And he’s got a bullet in him!

He was going to have to shoot. No question. He would never catch him. As he ran he flipped the safety off and thumbed the selector to full automatic. The distance between them was growing.

The man ahead was coming to a streetlight. Now!

Jake stopped and flopped down on his belly in the street. Too late he realized a gentle crown in the road obscured the lower half of the fleeing man’s body.

Panting desperately, Jake aligned the sights as best he could. He squeezed the trigger and held it down as he fought to hold the weapon on target.

He let the entire clip go in one long, thunderous three-second burst.

Half blinded from the muzzle blasts, he rose into a crouch and stared, blinking his eyes desperately, trying to see.

The man he had been chasing was gone.

Disappointed beyond words, Jake sank into a sitting position in the middle of the street and tried to catch his breath. Oh God! Forty-five years old and tied to a desk. He still couldn’t get enough air. His heart was thudding like he was going to die.

Three minutes later an army truck rounded the curve with a roar and squealed to a stop beside him. The sergeant on the running board leaped down and covered him with the M-16 while two men piled out of the rear of the truck and faced away with their weapons at the ready.

“Drop it.”

Jake let the rifle fall. “I’m Captain Graft—”

“On your face, Jack, spread-eagle, or I’ll cut you clean in half.”

He obeyed. Wearing khaki trousers and a green coat, he sure didn’t look like a soldier. Rough hands searched him and found his wallet, which they extracted.

“Sorry, sir. You may stand up now.”

Jake rolled over and accepted an offered hand. When he was standing he asked, “You guys with Bravo Company, Second Battalion?”

“No, sir. Charlie, First Battalion. Sorry about—”

“Forget it. Let me use your radio.”

Bravo Company was still assembling in Rock Creek Park. It would take another ten minutes or so, Rita estimated. She told him that the troops had removed all the equipment from the cave.

“Take it to the FBI. Special Agent Hooper.”

Jake deployed the Charlie Company soldiers in the truck and searched the neighborhood where the fugitive had disappeared.

Nothing. The man was gone.

At one a.m. Yocke came by with Toad and Rita, and Jake climbed into the car. He was exhausted.