Capitol Punishment

TWENTY NINE Trojan Horse

John Barrish stepped from the house near Fulks Run for the last time and gazed eastward over the trees. The morning sky glowed with a jaundiced hue that filtered through sheer fingers of clouds flowing northeast, the cold nip of winter stinging his cheeks. It was a beautiful morning. It would be a glorious day.

“John.”

He turned just his head toward the voice, then looked away from his wife’s face.

Louise Barrish came from the house, wearing the closest thing she had to a winter coat. It did little to stave off the sharp chill. “John, Toby is leaving soon.” She said this to his back. Silence followed. “How long will he be gone?”

“A while.”

Louise drew her arms tight against her chest, gripping opposite elbows. “John, does it have to happen?”

Trent wrote once that “doubters are not followers. Instead they favor proximity to the bold, for it is with them that they find nourishment for their weakness. Doubters need visionaries to justify their existence. The lion is a visionary. The grizzly is a visionary. The slug is a doubter. Doubters are prey.” Do not feed the doubter, John recalled Trent proposing. It was better to let the behavior starve.

“So many people are dead already,” Louise said, her voice having a surprising edge to it. “Do more have to die?”

“Toby will make the call tonight, then he’ll be back,” John said to the forest. Sparks of light flashed off the ice-covered trees as rays of sun began to crest the horizon.

“John, think about this,” Louise implored. She stepped closer, even though she could see her husband’s fist ball at his side. “How many more?”

“Make sure you make a big dinner. I’m sure he’ll be hungry.”

“John… Don’t do this. Stop it. You can stop it.”

“Don’t let a doubter become a challenger. Challengers are parasites that infect he who allows them quarter.”

“Please, John.” He was so young, so strong, with such powerful convictions, such grand ideas, such determination. How could she not have fallen in love with him then? So long ago. Now she understood the reality of it all. Her reality. One did not love John Barrish. One either hated him or respected him. Louise knew now that she was unique among those groupings. She was a creature of two selves. She did not love him. Infatuation at one time, maybe. Starry-eyed adoration. But never love. Respect, yes. Fear, most definitely. “Don’t make our sons like you. Don’t.”

John unclenched his fists and slid them into the pockets of his jeans. “Steak. We have some steaks left. Toby and Stanley both like steak.”

“John!”

He looked over his shoulder at her. “They’re my sons! They’re nothing like you! They never have been, they never will be!”

Her eyes were glistening, her cheeks red. Neither were from the cold. “Please!”

Now he turned his whole body and faced her, just looking, not lifting a hand, not making a move. It was a posture he had mastered against more worthy doubters. This one, like the others, would not become a challenger. “One other thing, Louise: if you say anything, do anything, even think anything that crosses me in front of the boys, I’ll kill you.”

Her body didn’t move an inch, but internally she cowered, hunching down into the smallest fetal position she could imagine, hands shielding her face from the monster that stood over her like a giant. The monster looked down upon her, then walked past. It could have stepped on her if it wanted.

It might still, she knew.

“I can’t believe we’re here,” Felicia Griggs said to her husband as they were escorted to the upper level of the House chamber.

“I’m in a suit,” Darren said. “Believe it.”

“I can’t get him in a suit even for church,” Felicia joked, looking back to Anne.

“I can’t get mine out of his,” Anne responded, realizing from the shocked look on her newest friend’s face that there was too much interpretation possible in that statement. “You know what I mean.”

“I know,” Felicia said.

“There was a lot of security outside,” Felicia commented. “There were soldiers on the roof of the Supreme Court building.”

“Just a few,” Darren reminded her, though he had noticed, too.

“Art promised it was safe,” Anne assured them. Of course he was miles away watching the whole thing as the guest of some government bigwigs. Well, they were guests of the biggest bigwig, Anne knew.

The House usher stopped and motioned a left to the guests of the president. “This way. To the second row on the right. You’ll be behind the first lady.”

Felicia froze momentarily, as did Anne. Collectively they thought, The First Lady!

“Come on,” Darren prodded. He led them down the steps, past the half-filled rows to the seats indicated by the usher. It was still early, and the House chamber was only sparsely populated, but more legislators were entering every minute.

“Do you think there’s someone selling peanuts?” Anne asked.

Felicia giggled at the joke and looked toward the podium where the president would be speaking. They were above and to the left of that spot, one of the choicest seats for the yearly event. It was where those whom the president had chosen for special recognition of some sort sat, along with the first family.

“Do you think she’ll bring the baby?” Felicia inquired.

“Not if he yells like he did at that speech the president gave last summer,” Darren answered.

“The child has lungs,” Anne commented.

“I think he’s cute,” Felicia said in defense of the little boy. She squeezed her husband’s hand as thoughts of another little boy filled her head. Darren, not surprisingly, squeezed back.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but Art Jefferson was when Secretary of State James Coventry met him in the foyer with a long-neck hanging lazily in one hand.

“Jefferson. Good to see you.” Coventry shook the agent’s hand and took his overcoat. It was dry outside, but cold and breezy. “Did the guard dogs give you any trouble?”

Art noticed the smile attached to the inquiry, but doubted that the two Secret Service agents who’d given him the once-over out front would appreciate the secretary’s characterization. “Just doing their job, sir.”

“I know. Come on in.” Coventry led the evening’s final arrival into the main area of the foyer. A long, sweeping staircase curved up to the left, forming an arch over the passageway to the back of the house. To the right was a parlor, and beyond it a dining room. To the left, through twin doors that were open, was the secretary’s study, and the gathering.

“This is a nice house, sir,” Art commented. Nice, big. It was definitely beyond his means, but soon there would be another set of means to add to his. And he would have to start looking for a new place. Correction, he caught himself…they would be looking.

“Thanks,” Coventry answered, bringing Art into the study. Bud DiContino and Gordon Jones stood to greet him. “You know this fella.”

“Mr. Director.” There was no way around the formality, Art knew. Mister this, mister that. All evening.

“Glad you could make it, Jefferson,” Jones said.

“And you’ve met Bud DiContino.”

“Yes. A couple years back.”

“Good to see you again,” Bud said, shaking the agent’s hand.

“Have a seat, Jefferson,” Coventry offered. “Take your jacket off. You want a beer?”

Oh, wonderful! He was being told to get comfortable and have a brew in front of the director! Art could see it was a loose-tie and rolled-up sleeves night, but he had a gun on his hip — although Jones did, too, and his Smith & Wesson was there for all to see.

“Relax, Jefferson,” Jones suggested with an amused smile. “Consider it a night off.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Beer?” Coventry asked again as Art hung his jacket with the others.

“Do you have any nonalcoholic stuff?”

“One light-light coming up.”

Art took a seat next to the national security adviser on one of the room’s two couches. Two chairs completed the U around the coffee table, and at the far end, built into a large display case that held some of the secretary’s memorabilia, was a good-sized TV.

“I wish you were in D.C. under better circumstances,” Bud commented.

“To be honest, I try not to find many circumstances to be in D.C.”

Bud smiled and looked to a grinning Jones. “He knows the first rule of surviving this place, Gordy: stay away!”

Jones chuckled quietly. He wasn’t a man given to overt laughter. “So, Jefferson, the word is you’re going to Chicago.”

“I called Bob Lomax yesterday and accepted.”

“What’s this?” Bud asked.

“Jefferson is going to be the new assistant special agent in charge of the Chicago field office,” Jones explained. He looked back to the agent. “You’ll like Lomax.”

“I worked with him in Chicago about a dozen years back,” Art said nodding.

Clinking bottles announced the secretary’s return. He handed Art a bottle, and the second round to the others, then sat in one of the chairs. Jones was next to him in the other.

“Good seats, gentlemen,” Coventry observed as the TV picture showed a filling House chamber. “Bud says you have someone there in the guest box?”

“Yes, my…” Well, she’s not really your girlfriend anymore. “…fiancée.”

“Congratulations, Jefferson,” Coventry said.

“A new job, a new wife,” Jones commented.

Bud lifted his long neck. “To a successful marriage and warm winters in Chicago.”

Art lifted his bottle with a wide smile. “Hear! Hear!”

The Volvo had been ditched in favor of a brand-new minivan whose owner wouldn’t miss it for a few hours yet. Darian was behind the wheel, easing it carefully north of the Leesburg Pike. In the back, Moises and Mustafa were making final preparations.

“How long since you’ve fired that?” Darian asked.

Mustafa swung the front of the break-open M79 grenade launcher upward, closing the breech-loaded weapon and making it ready to fire. In its chamber was a 40mm fragmentation round, and affixed to the bandolier slung across his chest were eight more. “About six months. But you never forget, Brother Darian.”

“Good. You know what to do.” Darian looked to Moises in the rearview. He sat straight in the second bench seat, the headlights from oncoming traffic washing pale over his face. “We’re almost there, Brother Moises. You ready?”

Moises looked straight ahead, his hands tight on the Ingram, and only nodded.

Fire. Darian saw it in the stare. Saw it on the face. A fighter had been born.

The metal detectors were four wide for House and Senate members, and were located just off Statuary Hall to the south of the grand rotunda. Begrudgingly, the elected representatives of the citizens of the United States had accepted this “indignity” after stern warnings by leaders of both political parties, but the lines were slowed by secondary checks after keys and various other items set off the sensitive instruments.

“Can you believe this?” Congressman Cal McCrary asked, as he and his fellow representative from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts inched closer to the portals manned by the Secret Service.

“Ridiculous,” Congressman Richard Vorhees agreed, the discomfort in his knee transferring more to his face as time wore on.

“Sore tonight, Dick?”

“Tonight, today, tomorrow, next week. Until I get a new leg.”

“Count your blessings, my man,” McCrary said. “You were lucky.” He checked the shade of his surroundings. “I think they enjoy killing middle-aged white men despite the statistics. Thank goodness yours was a lousy shot.”

“He didn’t want me chasing him,” Vorhees explained. “It was no accident he shot me in the leg. I’m just glad he picked the one made of plastic and steel.”

“Flesh and bone are expensive to replace, eh?”

“Don’t I know it?”

The mass of bodies became lines nearer the metal detectors. Vorhees followed McCrary through, and, as he expected, set off the buzzers. “Down here.”

A senior Secret Service agent, aware of the congressman’s condition, stepped forward. “We’ll just wand you, sir.”

Vorhees lifted his arms, letting the agent run the metal detecting wand up and down both sides of his body. The only reaction was from the prosthetic limb.

“Okay, sir. Go on in.”

Vorhees nodded and continued on, entering the House chamber just as the networks were throwing their “Presidential State of the Union Message” graphics up for a nationwide audience.

John Barrish sat with his youngest boy in front of the TV. Louise Barrish was nowhere to be seen.

“There he goes,” Stanley said at the sight.

John said nothing, but wore an uncharacteristic broad smile. It was no coincidence that this formed as the somewhat less than cheerful Congressman Richard Vorhees took his seat in the fourth row. “What time is it?”

Stanley looked at his watch. He knew what his father wanted to hear. “He should be doing it now.”

Sixty miles away, Toby Barrish was hanging up the pay phone at a truck stop just off Interstate 66, leaving a confused and alarmed 911 operator talking to a dial tone.