Capitol Punishment

TWENTY THREE Points of Reference

Congressman Richard Vorhees kept the pace brisk as the cool night air washed over him. Speed walking, some called it, that awkward-looking process of exercise or competition that made its practitioners look as though their legs were about to swivel loose of their hips. Vorhees didn’t care about appearances in this endeavor, though. This was his dose of aerobic exertion for the day. At one time in his life his work had kept him in shape — jumping from perfectly airworthy aircraft into the forest to hump a ruck for days on end usually did that to one. Now this was it.

But he couldn’t complain…too much. The job had stature, and he was coming through probably the darkest period of his political life relatively unscathed. All by being honest. As his feet — one real, one not — pushed his trim frame back toward home from his nightly five-miler along Leesburg Pike and its periphery streets, the congressman marveled briefly that he’d survived it all at the hand of the truth. Amazing. It wasn’t a trend he planned to continue, though. Not that one was “less than forthright” intentionally; it was simply a matter of necessity in government. The truth often was less important than being right. There was a difference, Vorhees knew.

So he walked at night to keep his heart strong, went home and massaged the soreness from the stump of flesh below his left knee, showered, slept, and got up the next day. Then off to battle, albeit a quieter kind of conflict than that which he’d seen as an officer in the 82nd. A quiet fight, a good fight. At the end of each day that was what counted. Not your wounds, but that you would fight again. That was the—

“Congressman!”

Vorhees slowed his pace at the call, putting on the brakes fully and turning to see two people, a man and a woman, trotting along the sidewalk to catch up with him. Leaves from the residential lawns blew across their path, and the motion of the man’s body twisted his jacket to the side to reveal a badge on his belt. Shit! Not you again. I thought I dodged your asses a month and a half ago.

“Congressman,” Art said, stopping after their short jog. Frankie was at his side. “I’m Special Agent Art Jefferson, FBI. This is Special Agent Frankie Aguirre. We were hoping you’d give us a minute of your time.”

Vorhees feigned breathlessness and bent forward, hands on knees. “I’m right at the end of my walk, Agent Jefferson.”

“It’ll just take a minute,” Art insisted diplomatically.

“We just have a few questions, sir,” Frankie added.

Vorhees straightened, shifting his bad leg a bit for better balance, and nodded. “All right.”

“We got your statement last month when we were in town, but there are a couple things we need to know beyond that.” Art let that hang for just a second. He wanted more than anything to gauge Vorhees’s reaction to their just being there. It wasn’t that he thought Vorhees was dirty, it was simply that he didn’t want the man to hold anything back that, though it might be embarrassing to him, would help them get their job done. “Nikolai Kostin — did you ever meet him? Face to face?”

Vorhees shook his head and breathed the Virginia night air deeply. “Never.”

“How much did Monte Royce tell you about him?” Art asked.

“The particulars,” Vorhees answered. “His position in the Russian and Soviet militaries. His expertise.”

“No red flags in any of that?” Frankie inquired. A hint of skepticism flavored the question.

“At the time I thought it would be better to have his kind of expertise in our country than in, say, Iran. Or Libya. Or Vietnam.”

“And Royce was vouching for him,” Frankie observed. “That was enough?”

“I thought so.” A little defiant, but also apologetic. It was the first lesson of excelling in D.C.: Craft your response perfectly.

“Did Monte Royce ever ask for any other favors?”

Vorhees eyed the black agent. “I don’t do favors.”

Of course not, Saint Richard. Let’s change the wording to something more palatable, Art thought. “Assistance, then?”

“I don’t recall at the moment,” Vorhees said, bringing both hands to his hips to signal impatience.

“How long did you know Monte Royce?” Royce was Vorhees’s link to this, Art knew. It was the place to apply pressure.

“A number of years.” The response was short. Get the message, Jefferson. You don’t grill a United States congressman like this. You don’t grill me like this.

“Did you attend his funeral?”

Vorhees sneered at the question. Funeral? There’s your exit. “I was busy. Agent Jefferson, if you don’t mind, I have things to do. This is not a good night for me. I have to attend a good friend’s funeral tomorrow.” Poor John. Victim of a bump and rob. But why did they leave his new Suburban? The police were probably trying to figure that out, too. But at least the body hadn’t lain for weeks rotting in some wooded ditch somewhere. His killers were decent enough to leave him by a road. It had still taken more than two days to locate it. And now the congressman had to find a new orthopedic. “If you are so interested in Monte Royce, which you seem to be from your questions, then why don’t you talk to Senator Crippen.”

“We have,” Frankie said.

“Well, then you know more than I can give you already. He was closer to Monte Royce than I was.”

But you were the one to help Royce. Art thought on that for a brief second. Maybe Royce thought Crippen would balk at the request. Maybe not. It was just the luck of the draw. Vorhees had come up short.

“If you’ll excuse me?” Vorhees said, politely waiting for a nod, or some signal that his inquisition was finished.

Darian eased the Volvo through the intersection after pausing at the four-way stop, looking right past Moises at their next target. “Those are pigs. I can smell ‘em.”

Jesus! Moises slid a bit lower in his seat. That’s him. The FBI guy.

The Volvo passed through the intersection and continued down Monroe. Vorhees’s residence was eight houses down. Darian slowed as they passed. “Did you get the route down?”

“Yeah,” Moises said, coming back up in his seat.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing.” You can’t tell him that pig was in your house. Who’d believe that and not think you were a snitch? “When you said there were pigs there I got nervous.”

“Pigs are pigs are pigs,” Darian said. “They bleed, they die, just like anyone. Funner to kill than ordinary people, though.” He’d only killed one pig up close — several had died in the World Center attack — but he was certain that would change before too long. “So you got it?”

Moises tapped the marked-up map book on his lap. Three times now they’d followed the gimp on his nightly walk, and each time he’d taken the same route. He was either cocky or stupid, Moises thought. An easy target. An opportune target.

“Let’s get home,” Darian said, accelerating down the street as the sight of the waddling congressman became visible in the rearview. The pigs were done with him. But they weren’t.

Toby opened the long brown box and lifted the contents out with one hand. It wasn’t light, but it wasn’t heavy either. He knew that weight would be the key to making this work. “Looks fake as hell, huh?”

John took the prosthetic limb, cradling it with both hands. It was roughly flesh colored, though one could tell by appearance that its surface did not approach the softness of real flesh. To touch it one would know that its exterior was a hard plastic material. The top, where the stump of the limb amputated below the knee fit into a form-fitting cup, was heavier in balance, as was the bottom. At that end a crude foot was attached. It rotated on a metallic ball joint through only a front-back motion to allow the wearer to walk, though not naturally or comfortably. This was a clunker, John knew. Not a new model at all.

“Are you sure it’s the right one?” John asked.

“It was in the file, and the Africans said the doc confirmed it.” Toby touched the artificial limb. “And it’s a good thing I was able to find this used. They don’t even make this model anymore.”

“Used is better,” John said. “It’ll look natural.” But looks were only part of the equation. Function was another. That they would start with immediately. “We’ve got work to do.”

“In the garage, Pop?”

John headed that way. “That’s where the tools are.”

While his father and brother toiled with the work of the hand, Stanley Barrish availed himself of a more cerebral activity a hundred and fifty miles to the east. Namely, reading the paper.

The Wednesday Washington Post carried the information he’d been waiting for on page five, in a little blurb that barely used two column inches to explain. The Secretary of State. Well… Stanley had read enough about the ways of appearance-conscious Washington — far more than his older brother — to know that having the secretary of state not attend the State of the Union address deserved more exposition in the capital’s paper. Maybe that would come in the days ahead. It was only two days after Christmas, and this little tidbit had obviously been released by the White House to be buried while most of official Washington was away enjoying a long winter break. That might be so, but Stanley had all he needed to get started.

The first question to be answered was where? Where would the secretary of state be the evening in question? Would he watch the speech from the State Department? Probably not. It was too close to the actual event. From a secret location somewhere? If that was the case, there would be little he could do to find it. Stanley knew he had a talent for subterfuge, but he wasn’t a magician. So he had to focus on what he could do, on what he could glean from sources available to him. It might take time. It might not. But he wasn’t going to find the answer in the Virginia capital.

He left Richmond, where he’d stayed the night before, experimenting with the pleasures of a pretty young girl, and drove north to Washington after reading the morning Post. The trip on Interstate 95 took two hours to the beltway, then another forty minutes before Stanley crossed the Roosevelt Bridge to reach the District of Columbia proper. His first destination was a somewhat random choice. Almost anywhere with a public building would do, but there was one place not far that at least held some interest. A short jaunt up the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, past the Kennedy Center, brought him to that place: the Watergate. It was home to a dark chapter in American political history.

It was also home to banks of public phones.

Stanley Barrish parked and entered the Watergate with the Post folded under his arm and chose a phone at the end of a line of three. The two to his right were empty. He opened the Post to its listing of phone numbers and editors and circled the number for the city desk, dialing after checking that no one was in earshot.

“Editorial, city desk.”

“Yeah, this is Paulie Schwartz. Litton advanced optics. One of your photo crews needed a low-light lens, and I’m supposed to deliver it to the shoot site. But I don’t know where that is. Do you have the photo assignment desk number?”

“I’ll transfer you.”

Simple enough, Stanley thought. But that was the easy lie. The next one would require more guile.

“Assignment desk.”

Stanley looked to the photo credit under the largest photo on page five, reading the name into memory before speaking. “Yes, is…uh…Mr. Heidell in?”

“Chuck Heidell? Hold on.”

It was a chancy shot, to be sure, but Stanley was banking on the supposition that most photographers for a big city paper probably spent little time in the office. They didn’t take pictures of colleagues at their desks, after all. Out and about was their business. Or so he hoped.

“Chuck’s out. You want to leave a message?”

“Uh, this is Billy in research. Mr. Heidell wanted me to pull any stories on a specific address for him. He wanted to see any accompanying photos, I guess. But I don’t know where the house is.”

“Billy…are you new here?”

“Yes…”

“I thought so, because if Chuck ever heard you calling him mister he’d eat you for lunch.”

“Oh. Okay. I didn’t—”

“Yeah, all right. So you need, what, an address?”

“Yes. He said it’s the secretary of state’s house.”

“Hang on.”

It was that simple? Stanley wondered if he could bluff his way into the White House. His dad would love that. Probably.

“You got a pen.”

“Yeah,” said “Billy.” Stanley copied the address onto the margin of the Post and thanked the photo desk. He was back in his car and heading across the Roosevelt Bridge ten minutes later, this time going north on the GW Parkway to the Lee Highway. Falls Church, Virginia, was eight miles distant.

Hillsborough Drive curved off of Lee Highway just past the Leesburg Pike. Stanley slowed the cream-colored Toyota as he entered the residential street, both because of the speed limit and to admire the beautiful homes. Fashionable, they were called, but the younger Barrish boy had no point of reference for comparison. He’d never lived in, or near, houses like those he was passing. They were huge, many with red brick facades that seemed calming somehow. At least he thought so.

He was not there to admire, though, and such idle thoughts would only remove focus from his task. He was there to look for one house. Just one.

But he almost missed it, the address placard blocked by a phone company truck parked facing the wrong way. Stanley passed the address, noticed he’d skipped a number, then backed up, stopping just feet from a phone company worker at the back of the open van. Phone Company? He looked up at the fine Tudor-style house beyond the natural carpet of green. Number 695. Mr. Secretary’s house. And some phone trouble to boot… Or, maybe…

“Hey, buddy.”

The phone worker looked left to Stanley. “Yeah.”

“My folks live down the street,” Stanley lied. At least this one didn’t require that a false name be used. “Is there phone trouble?”

“Nah. Just adding some lines here.”

Stanley nodded, and as he did a second workman emerged from number 695 Hillsborough Drive, coming down the meandering walk to the truck. A smile joined the nod. “Great. Thanks a lot.”

Adding lines? I wonder why they’re doing that? Stanley asked himself as he steered the Toyota back toward Lee Highway. He didn’t have to think long to convince himself of the answer.