Double blind

Chapter Forty-four

The impact of the 757 jetliner's wheels against a solid surface jarred Simon Whatley out of a deep sleep.

Christ, what was that? Did we hit something?

Whatley's eyes snapped wide open just as the spinning rear wheels struck the runway for the second time, whereupon he became aware — once again — of the stench of the nearby chemical toilets, and the noise of the rear cabin, where at least a half dozen small children now yowled from the effects of the sudden change in cabin pressure.

Landing? Can't possibly be there yet. What time is it?

Whatley tried to blink his sleep-blurred eyes into focus enough to see the hands of his very expensive Rolex.

Quarter to five. Can't be Dulles. Way too early. Not supposed to be there until… oh, right.

Seven-forty-five.

Three hours difference. Time zones.

God, we are here, he realized, blinking his eyes at what his numbed brain finally recognized as daylight — in the form of dreary clouds and the inevitable rain — through the windows of the now taxiing plane.

He immediately gave immensely grateful thanks that the first leg of this latest in a series of nightmarish trips had finally ended.

Not until the plane came to a final stop, and he stood up on his stiff, aching legs to retrieve his suit bag and briefcase from the overhead compartment did he realize…

Oh Jesus, the messages from the drop box. I haven't even looked at the damned things yet.

Simon Whatley felt sorely tempted to sit right back down and go through all of the messages from Lt. Colonel John Rustman's rogue hunter-killer recon team right there. Very tempted indeed, because Smallsreed had given him the specific task of reading, analyzing, and digesting their contents and presenting a summary of the relevant information to the congressman, Tisbury, and the horrifyingly ominous shadow-man who haunted the dark corners of Smallsreed's private office

… and scared Whatley far more than any one individual he'd ever met.

But Smallsreed's bagman immediately realized that any such effort — with kids whining, and babies crying, passengers trying to recover their luggage and other carelessly stowed personal items, and the flight attendants hovering with amazing patience, trying to get everyone off the plane so that they could get off, too — courted disaster.

Christ, what if I drop one of them… and some kid grabs it.. and it ends up in the hands of some nosy law-enforcement official?

Or worse, much worse, someone from the Washington Post?

The mere thought sent a chill down Simon Whatley's spine.

In the taxi, he told himself as he slowly shuffled his way out of the plane. Read them in the taxi on the way to the hotel. Check in, shower, change clothes, whip out a quick summary, and go to Smallsreed's office.

He glanced down at his watch again, noting it was almost exactly eight o'clock in the morning, D.C. time, and quickly calculated the relevant time/risk factors associated with his scheduled appearance before Regis J. Smallsreed, Sam Tisbury, and the shadow-man,

Smallsreed didn't expect him to arrive at the private office at the Longworth House Office Building until eleven. Thus, even taking the heavy rain and the notoriously congested DC metro area commute into account, the senior congressional staffer felt certain that he would be in his hotel room by nine-thirty A.M. at the very latest.

It would take him one hour to shower, shave, change clothes, glance through the drop-box messages one last time, write a quick summary, and then take the elevator down to the lobby, where a very solicitous concierge and doorman would personally escort him to a waiting taxi with an open umbrella and a cheerful smile.

Add another ten-minute taxi ride — fifteen at the very most — to reach the front steps of the Longworth House Office Building, followed by a pleasant five-minute walk through the halls of power… and Whatley would stand in Smallsreed's office, sipping a cup of coffee and chatting with the senior members of Smallsreed's staff, with a good fifteen minutes to spare.

Plenty of time.

Accordingly, when Simon Whatley removed the three thinnest drop-box message envelopes from his briefcase and carefully placed them in his jacket pocket, he didn't think anything at all about handing his overcoat, suit bag, and briefcase — containing his wallet, keys, airline tickets, Congressional Office Building pass, and the thick envelope with the hunter-killer recon team's surveillance photos of their intended targets — to the taxicab driver, who placed them all in the trunk of the vehicle before shutting Whatley's door.

It was ironic, then, as the cab approached the Dulles Access Road junction with the Washington Beltway in the drizzling rain fifteen minutes later, that just as the finally relaxed congressional district office manager started to reach into his jacket pocket for the messages from Lt. Colonel John Rustman's hunter-killer recon team, a daydreaming commuter suddenly realized where he was, slammed on his brakes, and swerved sharply to the right in a desperate attempt to make his exit… thereby initiating a chain reaction that sent Whatley's cab spinning out of control into the off-ramp divider.

The highly professional and experienced paramedics who responded to the multiple-car accident at the intersection of the Dulles Access Road and the Washington Beltway, wasted no precious time worrying about the individual identities of the bodies lying or hanging in the twisted wreckage that comprised three distinctly separate cars and a cab.

They quickly and methodically extracted all of the survivors from their vehicles before any of the spilled gasoline ignited; provided immediate first-aid treatment for airway obstruction, bleeding and shock; transported the victims to the nearest hospital as quickly as possible; and then got back on the air to take the next priority call.

On rainy days, that last task ranked almost as highly as the other three. At last count, and according to the harried dispatchers who repeatedly put calls out for any available emergency-response team, nine accident calls awaited response, four of which involved serious injuries.

All in all, a typical rainy day in metropolitan Washington, D.C.

Accordingly — and very much unlike the Jasper County, Oregon, paramedics who actually took time to try to identify Wilbur Boggs — the team that transported Simon Whatley and the cab driver to nearby Fairfax County Hospital in northern Virginia simply rolled the two unconscious victims out of the back of the ambulance and into the waiting hands of the emergency-room medical team; tossed a pair of plastic bags — one of which contained Whatley's shoes, coat, jacket, tie, and the three drop- box messages — on the curb; secured two freshly made-up gurneys into the back of the ambulance; signed a clipboard-mounted form; then vanished into the dreary, rainy morning with lights flashing and sirens wailing.

Simon Whatley's briefcase, containing, among many other things, his wallet, keys, airline tickets, Congressional Office Building pass, and an envelope bearing the surveillance photos taken by First Sergeant Aran Wintersole's hunter-killer team, remained in the trunk of the demolished cab which, at that very moment, was being towed to a local storage yard several miles from the crash site.

Like Wilbur Boggs before him, Simon Whatley quickly disappeared into the bowels of an overwhelmed emergency-medical-treatment system.