Shall We Tell the President?

Wednesday afternoon 9 March

2:15 P.M.

Mark finished his lunch. Two other men finished their sandwiches and also rose to leave. Mark quickly returned to the Senate, as he wanted to catch Henry Lykham before the floor debate started. He hoped that Lykham would have something new to reveal after having had a night to sleep on it. He also needed copies of the Judiciary Committee Gun Control Hearings so that he could study the questions asked by Brooks, Byrd, Dexter, Harrison, and Thornton. Perhaps they would reveal another missing piece of the jigsaw. But somehow Mark doubted it. He was becoming convinced that politicians rarely revealed anything. He arrived a few minutes before the session was scheduled to begin, and asked a page if he could locate Lykham in the antechamber.

Lykham bustled out a few moments later. It was obvious he didn’t want a chat ten minutes before a full session. So he had no real chance to tell him anything new even if he had thought of something. All Mark did manage to find out was where to obtain transcripts of the committee hearings and discussions.

“You can get them from the committee office at the end of the corridor.”

Mark thanked him and walked upstairs to the gallery, where his new friend, the guard, had saved him a seat. The place was already packed. Senators were entering the chamber and taking their places, so he decided to pick up the transcripts later.

The Vice President, Bill Bradley, called for order and the tall figure of Senator Dexter looked around the room slowly and dramatically, sweeping the chamber with his eyes to be assured of everyone’s attention. When his eyes alighted on Mark he looked a little surprised, but he quickly recovered and began his final arguments against the bill.

Mark was embarrassed and wished he had taken a seat nearer the back, beyond the range of Dexter’s piercing glance. The debate dragged on. Brooks, Byrd, Dexter, Harrison, Thornton. They all wanted a final word before tomorrow’s vote. Before tomorrow’s death.

Mark listened to them all but he learned nothing new. He seemed to have come to a dead end. All that was left for him to do that day was to go and pick up transcripts of the hearings. He would have to read them through the night and he doubted, having listened to the five speak twice already, that they would reveal anything. But what other lead did he have left? Everything else was being covered by the Director. He walked down the hall to the elevator, left the Capitol by the ground-floor exit, and made his way across the Capitol grounds to the Dirksen Building.

“I would like the transcripts of the Gun Control Hearings, please.”

“All of them?” asked the disbelieving secretary.

“Yes,” replied Mark.

“But there were six all-day sessions.”

Oh, hell, he thought, it will be worse than all night; still, it would be only the questions and statements of Brooks, Byrd, Dexter, Harrison and Thornton.

“Sign or pay?”

“I wish I could sign,” he said jokingly.

“Well, are you an official of any kind?”

Yes, thought Mark. But I can’t admit it.

“No,” said Mark, and took out his wallet.

“If you asked for these through one of the senators from your state, you could probably get them for nothing. Otherwise that’ll be ten dollars, sir.”

“I’m in a hurry,” said Mark. “Guess I’ll have to pay.”

He handed over the money. Senator Stevenson appeared in the doorway connecting the hearing room to the committee office.

“Good afternoon, Senator,” said the secretary, turning away from Mark.

“Hi, Debbie. Would you happen to have a copy of the Clean Air bill as it was reported out of the subcommittee, before the committee markup?”

“Certainly, Senator, just a moment.” She disappeared into a back room. “It’s the only copy we have at the moment. Can I trust you with it, Senator?” She laughed. “Or should I make you sign for it?”

Even senators sign, thought Mark. Senators sign for everything. Henry Lykham signs for everything, even lunch. No wonder my taxes are so high. But I imagine they have to pay for the food later. The food. My God, why didn’t I think of it before. Mark started running.

“Sir, sir, you’ve left your hearings,” a voice shouted. But it was too late.

“Some kind of nut,” said the secretary to Senator Stevenson.

“Anyone who wants to read all those hearings must be crazy to begin with,” said Senator Stevenson, staring at the pile of paper Mark had left behind him.

Mark went straight to Room G-211, where he had lunched with Lykham the previous day. The door was marked “Officials’ Dining Room.” There were only two or three attendants in evidence.

“Excuse me, I wonder if you could tell me, is this where the senators eat?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know. You’d have to talk to the hostess. We’re just cleaning up.”

“Where might I find the hostess?”

“She’s not here. Gone for the day. If you come back tomorrow, maybe she can help you.”

“Okay.” Mark sighed. “Thanks. But can you tell me — is there another Senate dining room?”

“Yeah, the big one in the Capitol. S-109, but you won’t be able to get in there.”

Mark ran back to the elevator and waited impatiently. When he reached the basement level, he jumped out and walked past the entrance to the labyrinthine tunnels which connect all the office buildings on Capitol Hill. Past the door marked “Tobacco Shop,” he raced towards the large sign — “Subway Cars to Capitol.” The subway car, actually just an open train with compartments, was about to leave. Mark stepped into the last compartment and sat down opposite a couple of Senate staffers who were jabbering away about some bill or other, with an air of “we belong.”

A few moments later, a bell signaled their arrival and the train came to a stop at the Senate side of the Capitol. Easy life, thought Mark. These guys need never even wander out into the cold, cruel world. They just shuttle back and forth between votes and hearings. The basement on this side was a replica of the basement on the other side, a dull yellow, with exposed plumbing, and the inevitable Pepsi machine; it must have made Coca-Cola mad that Pepsi had the concession for the Senate. Mark bounded up the small escalator and waited for the public elevator, while a couple of men with a certain air of importance were ushered into the elevator marked “Senators Only.”

Mark got off on the ground floor, and looked around, perplexed. Nothing but marble arches and corridors. Where was the Senate Dining Room? he asked one of the Capitol policemen.

“Just walk straight ahead, take the first corridor on the left. It’s the narrow one, the first entrance you get to.” He pointed.

Mark tossed a thank-you over his shoulder and found the narrow corridor. He passed the kitchens and a sign which announced “Private — Press Only.” Straight ahead, in large letters on a wooden sign, he saw another “Senators Only.” An open door on the right led into the anteroom, decorated with a chandelier, a rose-colored, patterned carpet, and green leather furniture, all dominated by the colorful, crowded painting on the ceiling. Through another door, Mark could see white tablecloths, flowers, the world of gracious dining. A matronly woman appeared in the doorway.

“What can I do for you?” she asked, raising her eyebrows inquisitively.

“I’m doing a thesis on the working life of a senator for my Ph.D.” Mark took out his wallet and showed his Yale I.D. card, covering the expiration date with his thumb.

The lady was not visibly impressed.

“I really only want to look at the room. Just to get the atmosphere of the place.”

“Well, there are no senators in here at the moment, sir. There almost never are this late on a Wednesday. They start going back to their home states on Thursdays for a long weekend. The only thing that is keeping them here this week is that Gun Control bill.”

Mark had managed to edge himself into the center of the room. A waitress was clearing a table. She smiled at him.

“Do senators sign for their meals? Or do they pay cash?”

“Almost all of them sign, and then they pay at the end of the month.”

“How do you keep track?”

“No problem. We keep a daily record.” She pointed to a large book marked Accounts. Mark knew that twenty-three senators had lunched that day because their secretaries had told him so. Had any other senator done so without bothering to inform his secretary? He was a yard away from finding out.

“Could I just see a typical day? Just out of interest,” he asked with an innocent smile.

“I’m not sure I’m allowed to let you look.”

“Only a glance. When I write my thesis, I want people to think that I really know what I’m talking about, that I’ve seen for myself. Everyone’s been so kind to me.”

He looked at the woman pleadingly.

“Okay,” she said grudgingly, “but please be quick.”

“Thank you. Why don’t you pick any old day, let’s say 24 February.”

She opened the book and thumbed through to 24 February. “A Thursday,” she said. Stevenson, Nunn, Moynihan, Heinz, names rang one after the other. Dole, Hatfield, Byrd. So Byrd lunched at the Senate that day. He read on. Templeman, Brooks — Brooks as well. More names. Barnes, Reynolds, Thornton. So his statement this morning was for real. The hostess closed the book. No Harrison, no Dexter.

“Nothing very special about that, is there?” she said.

“No,” said Mark. He thanked the woman and left quickly.

In the street he hailed a taxi. So did one of the three men following him; the other two went off to pick up their car.

Mark arrived at the Bureau a few moments later, paid the driver, showed his credentials at the entrance, and took the elevator to the seventh floor. Mrs. McGregor smiled. The Director must be alone, thought Mark. He knocked and went in.

“Well, Mark?”

“Brooks, Byrd, and Thornton are not involved, sir.”

“The first two don’t surprise me,” said the Director. “It never made any sense that they were, but I’d have put a side bet on Thornton. Anyway, how did you dispose of those three?”

Mark described his brainstorm about the Senate dining room, and wondered what else he had overlooked.

“You should have worked all of that out three days ago, shouldn’t you, Mark?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So should I,” said the Director. “So we’re down to Dexter and Harrison. It will interest you to know that both men, along with almost all of the senators, intend to be in Washington tomorrow and both are down to attend the ceremony at the Capitol. Amazing,” he mused, “even at that level, men like to watch their crimes enacted.

“Let’s go over it once again, Andrews. The President leaves the south entrance of the White House at 10:00 A.M. unless I stop her, so we have seventeen hours left and one last hope. The boys in Fingerprints have isolated the bill with Mrs. Casefikis’s prints on it. The twenty-second, we may be lucky — with still another half dozen to go we shouldn’t have had a hope before ten o’clock tomorrow. There are several other prints on the bill, and they will be working on them all through the night. I expect to reach home by midnight. If you come up with anything before then, call me. I want you here in the office at 8:15 tomorrow. There’s very little you can do now. But don’t worry too much; I have twenty agents still working on it, though none of them knows all the details. And I’ll only let the President into the danger zone if we have a fix on these villains.”

“I’ll report at 8:15 then, sir,” said Mark.

“And, Mark, I strongly advise you not to see Dr. Dexter. I don’t want to blow this whole operation at the last moment, because of your love life. No offense intended.”

“No, sir.”

Mark left, feeling slightly superfluous. Twenty agents now assigned to the case. How long had the Director had them working round the clock without telling him? Twenty men trying to find out whether it was Dexter or Harrison, without knowing why. Still, only he and the Director knew the whole story, and he feared the Director knew more than he did. Perhaps it would be wiser to avoid Elizabeth until the following evening. He picked up his car, and drove back to the Dirksen Building and then remembered he had left the hearings’ transcripts at the Committee Office. When he got there he found himself drawn toward the telephone booths. He had to call her, he had to find out how she was after her accident. He dialed Woodrow Wilson.

“Oh, she left the hospital — some time ago.”

“Thank you,” said Mark. He could feel his heart beat as he dialed her Georgetown number.

“Elizabeth?”

“Yes, Mark.” She sounded — cold? frightened? tired? A hundred questions were racing through his mind.

“Can I come and see you right now?”

“Yes.” The telephone clicked.

Mark left the booth, conscious of the sweat on the palms of his hands. One more job to do before he could drive off to Elizabeth, pick up those damned papers from the Senate Gun Control Hearings.

Mark walked toward the elevator and thought he could hear footsteps behind him. Of course he could hear footsteps behind him; there were several people behind him. When he reached the elevator, he pressed the Up-button and glanced around at the footsteps. Among the crowd of Senate staffers, congressmen, and sightseers, two men were watching him — or were they protecting him? There was a third man in dark glasses staring at a Medicare poster, even more obviously an agent, to Mark’s quick eyes, than the other two.

The Director had said that he had put twenty agents on the case, and three of them must have been allocated to watch Mark. Hell. Soon they would be following him back to Elizabeth and Mark did not doubt that the Director would learn about it immediately. Mark resolved that no one was going to follow him back to Elizabeth’s. It was none of their damned business. He’d shake the three of them off. He needed to see her in peace, without prying eyes and malicious tongues. He thought quickly as he waited to see which of the two elevators would arrive first. Two of the agents were now walking toward him, but the one by the Medicare poster remained motionless. Perhaps he wasn’t an operative after all, but there certainly was something familiar about him. He had the aura of an agent; other agents can sense it with their eyes shut.

Mark concentrated on the elevator. The arrow on his right lit up and the doors opened slowly. Mark shot in and stood facing the buttons and stared out at the corridor. The two operatives followed him into the elevator, and stood behind him. The man by the Medicare poster started walking toward the elevator. The doors were beginning to close. Mark pressed the Open-button, and the doors parted again. Must give him a chance to get in, and have all three of them together, Mark thought, but the third man did not respond. He just stood, staring, as if waiting for the next elevator. Perhaps he wanted to go down and wasn’t an agent at all. Mark could have sworn... The doors began to close and at what Mark thought was the optimum point, he jumped back out. Wrong. O’Malley managed to squeeze himself out as well, while his partner was left to travel slowly but inevitably up to the eighth floor. Now Mark was down to two tails. The other elevator arrived. The third agent stepped into it immediately. Very clever or innocent, Mark thought, and waited outside. O’Malley was at his shoulder — which one next?

Mark strolled into the elevator and pressed the Down-button, but O’Malley was able to get in easily. Mark pressed the Open-button and sauntered back out. O’Malley followed him, face impassive. The third man remained motionless in the elevator. They must be working together. Mark jumped back in and jabbed the Close-button hard. The doors closed horribly slowly, but O’Malley had walked two paces away and was not going to make it. As the doors slammed together, Mark smiled. Two gone, one standing on the ground floor helpless, the other heading for the roof, while he was descending to the basement alone with the third.

O’Malley caught up with Pierce Thompson on the fifth floor. Both were out of breath.

“Where is he?” cried O’Malley.

“What do you mean, where is he? I thought he was with you.”

“No, I lost him on the first floor.”

“Shit, he could be anywhere,” said Thompson. “Whose side does the smart-ass think we are on? Which one of us is going to tell the Director?”

“Not me,” O’Malley said. “You’re the senior officer, you tell him.”

“No way I’m telling him,” Thompson said. “And let that bastard Matson take all the credit — you can be sure he’s still with him. No, we’re going to find him. You take the first four floors and I’ll take the top four. Bleep immediately when you spot him.”

When Mark reached the basement, he stayed in the elevator. The third man walked out and seemed to hesitate. Mark’s thumb was jammed on the Close-button again. The door responded. He was on his own. He tried to make the elevator bypass the ground floor but he couldn’t; someone else wanted to get in. He prayed it was not one of the three men. He had to risk it. The doors opened and he walked out immediately. No agents in sight, no one studying the Medicare poster. He ran toward the revolving doors at the end of the corridor. The guard on duty looked at him suspiciously and fingered the holster of his gun. Through the revolving doors and out into the open, running hard. He glanced around. Everyone was walking, no one was running. He was safe.

Pennsylvania Avenue — he dodged in and out of the traffic amid screeching tires and angry expletives. He reached the parking lot and jumped into his car, fumbling for some change. Why did they make trousers that you couldn’t get your hands into when you sat down? He quickly paid for his ticket and drove toward Georgetown — and Elizabeth. He glanced in the rear-view mirror. No Ford sedan in sight. He’d done it. He was on his own. He smiled. For once he had beaten the Director. He drove past the lights at the corner of Pennsylvania and 14th just as they were changing. He began to relax.

A black Buick ran the lights. Lucky there were no traffic cops around.

When Mark arrived in Georgetown, his nervousness returned, a new nervousness associated with Elizabeth and her world, not with the Director and his world. When he pressed the bell on her front door, he could still hear his heart beating.

Elizabeth appeared. She looked drawn and tired and didn’t speak. He followed her into the living-room.

“Have you recovered from your accident?”

“Yes, thank you. How did you know I’d had an accident?” she asked.

Mark thought quickly. “Called the hospital. They told me there.”

“You’re lying, Mark. I didn’t tell them at the hospital, and I left early after a phone call from my father.”

Mark couldn’t look her in the eyes. He sat down and stared at the rug. “I... I don’t want to lie to you, Elizabeth. Please don’t.”

“Why are you following my father?” she demanded. “He thought you looked familiar when he met you at the Mayflower. You’ve been haunting his committee meetings and you’ve been watching the debates in the Senate.”

Mark didn’t answer.

“Okay, don’t explain. I’m not completely blind. I’ll draw my own conclusions. I’m part of an FBI assignment. My, you’ve been working late hours, haven’t you, Agent Andrews? For a man singled out to work a senators’ daughters’ beat, you’re pretty goddamn inept. Just how many daughters have you seduced this week? Did you get any good dirt? Why don’t you try the wives next? Your boyish charm might be more effective on them. Although, I must confess, you had me fooled, you lying bastard.”

Despite a considerable effort to maintain the icy control with which she had launched her attack, Elizabeth bit her lip. Her voice caught. Mark still couldn’t look at her. He heard the anger and the tears in her voice. In a moment, the chilling frost had covered her emotion again.

“Please leave now, Mark. Now. I’ve said my piece and I hope I never lay eyes on you again. Perhaps then I can recover some of my self-respect. Just go; crawl back into the slime.”

“You’ve misunderstood, Elizabeth.”

“I know, you poor misunderstood agent, and you love me for myself. There’s no other girl in your life,” she said bitterly. “At least not until you’re transferred to a new case. Well, this case has just finished. Go find somebody else’s daughter to seduce with your lies about love.”

He couldn’t blame her for her reaction, and left without another word.

He drove home in a daze. The occupants of the car following him were fully alert. When he arrived, Mark left the car keys with Simon and took the elevator to his apartment.

The black Buick was parked a hundred yards from the building. The two men could see the light in Mark’s apartment. He dialed six of the seven digits of her number, but then he put the phone back on the hook and turned off the light. One of the men in the Buick lit another cigarette, inhaled, and checked his watch.

After months of bargaining, bullying, cajoling and threatening the Gun Control bill was at last to be presented to the House for their final approval.

This was to be the day when Florentyna made an indelible mark on American history. If she achieved nothing else during her term of office she would live to be proud of this single act.

What could prevent it now? she asked for the thousandth time. And for the thousandth time the same dreadful thought flashed across her mind.

She dismissed it once again.