Under Siege

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The subway and the buses didn’t operate beyond the beltway on Wednesday morning, and tens of thousands of suburban commuters didn’t hear the news on television or radio. Infuriated, many who normally rode to work on public transport tried to join the hordes who drove. This was a serious mistake. Troops and state policemen had blocked every beltway entrance to Washington and were making all vehicles attempting to enter or leave the district turn around. Only law-enforcement officers, people with military IDs, and emergency vehicles were being allowed to pass. Although many of those who normally worked in the city heard the news before they left their homes and consequently decided to stay home, the traffic jams that morning were monumental, even by Southern California standards.

All flights to and from National Airport were canceled. The trains and intercity buses were not running. Washington was isolated and troops patrolled the streets.

Not many troops at first. The National Guard was still mobilizing and had less than twenty-five percent of their men on duty. Regular army troops began arriving at three a.m. on C-141s and C-5s at Andrews Air Force Base. General Hayden Land had ordered in a division of infantry and two regiments of armored cavalry. It would take almost thirty-six hours to get all the men and their equipment to Washington.

During the night the Vice-President’s original commitment to guard major public buildings had evolved into a show of overwhelming force. The plan recommended to General Land by the Joint Staff had been approved by the White House. No White House staffer wanted to be the first to say “enough,” not when the primary criticism that continued violence would stimulate would be that the government had not done enough to prevent it. So the more-is-better recommendations of Jake Grafton and his group had been adopted all the way up the line.

By ten a.m. tanks and armored personnel carriers were parked near the major government buildings in the downtown area. By noon they were in front of every hospital in town. By two p.m. every traffic circle in the District had a tank parked in the flower beds beside the statue. The olive-drab monsters sat in pairs upon the Mall, the diesel engines idling in the chill December wind as the crews stood nearby drinking coffee from disposable cups and looking with wide eyes at the sprawling buildings bathed in the weak winter sun.

The men were dressed for the weather but they were still cold. Last night they had been in Georgia. They indulged themselves in a great deal of arm swinging and jogging in place.

At nine a.m. the Vice-President met with a delegation of two dozen congressmen and senators in the East Room of the White House. It was not a happy meeting. Legislators who lived outside the beltway were of course not present. Their colleagues demanded that representatives, senators, and members of their staffs have access through military lines.

Vice-President Quayle instantly agreed. “This,” he explained, “was a glitch no one thought of last night.”

“There’s a hell of a lot of things you people never thought of last night,” Senator Bob Cherry thundered. “Food — how are grocery trucks going to get into the city? How are sick people going to get in and out? Critical medical supplies? The radio says there are thousands of people stranded at National Airport and Union Station. Damn it, you can’t just surgically remove this city from the rest of the United States and expect it to keep breathing. Won’t happen.”

“It’ll only be until we can thoroughly search the city for terrorists,” Quayle explained, looking from face to face. “Surely everyone can see the necessity for extraordinary measures.”

“We gotta do something,” someone muttered.

“Something won’t hack it,” Cherry boomed. “This military idea is half-baked. Won’t work. Why does anybody think a bunch of kids wearing uniforms and carrying rifles can do what the FBI can’t?”

“This may not work,” Dan Quayle acknowledged. “But we’re going to try it for lack of something better. We’ve got to stop the terrorism and violence. Stop it dead, once and for all. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“But you can’t just rip the Constitution into confetti,” Cherry groused. “What about people’s rights?”

“Senator,” Quayle began patiently, “I’m well aware that Christmas is six days away and kids aren’t out of school, and some people are being prevented from going to work and earning a living. I know this measure is a financial hardship on many and an outright disaster for others. My wife reminded me this morning that many employers cannot afford to pay their employees if they aren’t working and a lot of those who can afford it won’t bother. I know this measure is a real hardship on many. Still, it’s necessary.”

“In your judgment,” Cherry said crossly.

“In my judgment,” Quayle echoed, irritated with Cherry and all of them. He had been in Washington long enough to learn that there was nothing fair about politics: if ordering in the National Guard and the Army turned out to be ineffective or a disaster, he would be blamed; yet if the measure worked and the terrorists were apprehended, the advisors and staff would get all the credit for convincing Dan Quayle, the bumbling fool, to do the right thing.

“You should have asked the advice of the senior members of Congress before you called in the military,” Cherry continued, not yet ready to let it lie. “I, for one, am more than a little peeved that we get summoned like ladies in waiting to come over here and listen to edicts from the throne.”

Dan Quayle lost his temper. “Goddammit, Senator, everybody in this room knew about this yesterday. I have assumed the President’s responsibilities during his disability and I am not going to run the presidency by committee.”

“I’m not suggesting—” Cherry began, but Quayle ignored him and began talking into the microphone on the podium while referring to notes:

“I have appointed an independent nonpartisan presidential commission to oversee federal efforts to apprehend the people responsible for the atrocities of these past few days. This will be announced to the press as soon as we finish here. The commission will work closely with all the federal agencies involved to investigate all matters connected with these crimes. I want all the facts investigated and laid before the public. The commission will have the authority to pursue any line of inquiry it feels is germane. I will send a message to Congress today asking for a special appropriation so the commission can immediately hire staff and get to work. I certainly hope Congress will see fit to act quickly. I don’t want anybody shouting cover-up when all the dust settles.

“Mr. Dorfman, please read the names.”

Will Dorfman somehow didn’t look his nasty, mean little self, Congresswoman Samantha Strader noted with a raised eyebrow. The troll actually looked human this morning — harried, a touch of exhaustion.

Dorfman read the list. The first name was that of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Harlan Longstreet. That was fitting. Chief Justice Earl Warren had directed the inquiry into John F. Kennedy’s assassination, but in spite of herculean efforts on the part of the investigators, nitpickers and conspiracy fanatics were still unsatisfied over twenty-five years later. Perhaps that was inevitable.

The eighth name Dorfman read was Sam Strader. When Dorfman had telephoned and asked her to serve she had been momentarily at a loss for words, a rare experience, not to be savored. “Why me?” she asked.

“Quayle wants this commission to be nonpartisan, and the only way we know to do that is to get people from all across the political spectrum to serve.”

She mulled it for three seconds. Yes. Now, standing here watching Danny the Dork prove that brains are not a prerequisite for public office, she was sure she had made the right decision.

She would have a delicious time tormenting those male chauvinist fascists at the FBI who, God knew, richly deserved far worse. More importantly, she would be able to make the blind world see that emperor Quayle wore no pants — this military witch hunt for someone to pin the blame on had all the earmarks of a debacle in the making. Last, but certainly not least, tens of millions of voters who had never heard of Samantha Strader soon would.

There was no reason that she shouldn’t be the next president. After all, Quayle had the charisma of a fish. The real problem was getting the Democratic nomination, and if she could show what a woman could do to clean up this terrorist mess, she would have a leg up.

All in all, this was going to be an enjoyable, interesting project. As usual, Samantha Strader had not a scintilla of self-doubt: she believed in herself and her opinions with a white-hot zeal that would have looked good on a messiah. Despite the seriousness of the occasion Strader indulged herself in a luxurious grin.

Special Agent Thomas F. Hooper found his colleague Freddy Murray lounging beside the nurse’s station outside the intensive care unit. “How is he?”

“Coming out of it. It’ll be a few more hours. He surprised the surgeons. They thought he’d die on the table.”

“Seven dead men in the warehouse and one in his room at Quantico. The maid found the body an hour ago when she went in to change the sheets. The lab guys are trying to put it all together and figure out who everybody is.”

“I got ten bucks that says he killed them all.”

“No bet.”

Freddy Murray shook his head. “Funny, isn’t it? Ten months — wiretaps, depositions, surveillance cameras, the whole enchilada — and all we got to show for it are seven corpses.”

They stood silently, listening to the sounds of the hospital, the clicking, hissing, sucking, squeaking, groaning noises.

“The stiff in Harrison’s room at Quantico is white. Not sure yet, but one of the agents thinks it’s Tony Anselmo.”

“From New York?”

“Yeah.”

“We let this go on too long,” Freddy Murray said after a bit. “We should’ve busted Freeman’s bunch in September.”

“Don’t give me that! We didn’t have enough in September.”

“We let this go on too long,” Freddy repeated stubbornly.

Tom Hooper let it lie. “Let’s go sit down someplace. I only had three hours’ sleep.”

They collapsed on the sofa in the ICU waiting room, two doors down the hall.

Hooper sighed, then extracted a sheet of paper from his pocket and passed it to Freddy. “Ever seen this guy before?”

Freddy unfolded the paper. It was a copy of an artist’s rendering of a face. A very plain face. At the bottom of the sheet this information appeared: “White male, approximately forty years of age, five feet nine or ten inches, clean shaven, short dark hair, dark eyes.”

“Don’t recognize him. Who is he?”

“The dude who shot Gideon Cohen yesterday. Maybe. A woman saw him in the lobby of the building as he was leaving. He was wearing surgical gloves.”

Freddy looked at the picture again, trying to visualize that face on a real man. He started to hand the paper back, but Hooper waved it away.

“Keep it. We’re getting thousands made. It’ll be on television nationwide in an hour or so and in the papers this evening and tomorrow.”

“It isn’t that good a picture,” Freddy pointed out.

Hooper shrugged. “You’re a ray of sunshine.”

“So what are you going to do about Harrison?”

“Do?” Hooper muttered, donning a slightly puzzled look.

“You gonna arrest him or what?”

“What would I arrest him for? What charge? Is there any proof that he’s done anything illegal?”

“I dunno. That’s why I’m asking.”

“Get some cops up here — uniformed cops. I want a cop at the ICU door and one at the floor nurse’s station twenty-four hours a day. And I want to hear immediately when Ford regains consciousness.”

Hooper summoned all his energy and extracted himself from the soft couch.

“Where you going?” Freddy asked.

“Over to see what the hell those guys have turned up on the Willie Teal murders. You oughta see that place! Fourteen bodies! And we figured out which one is Willie. He was sitting on the crapper with his pants around his ankles when the grenades started coming in. Boy, is he ever dead!” Hooper scratched his head and glanced at his watch. “That search warrant for McNally’s place ought to be signed by now. I’d sure like to find those grenade launchers.”

Hooper looked at Freddy. “By the way, I haven’t let them tell the press about these McNally killings. We’ll hold onto that for a while and see what happens.”

“What could happen? The McNally brothers wiped out the Teal outfit. Now they’re dead. End of story.”

Hooper grunted and walked out. Freddy watched him go, then headed for the pay phone. The police department was undoubtedly going to be delighted to furnish two officers around the clock.

There was a light. He could see the glare but his eyes wouldn’t focus. Then the effort of holding his eyes open became too much and he closed them and drifted.

He had been dreaming and he tried to go back to the dream. It was July, that time of blue skies and hot, sticky days, and he was sitting on his grandmother’s porch counting the squeaks as the swing went back and forth, back and forth.

He had the whole summer to loaf and play and yet the only thing he could think of to do was sit in the swing and listen to the chain squeak as it rubbed on the hooks in the ceiling.

His grandmother had been in the dream, sitting on the steps stringing beans, and it seemed important to see her again. Crazy as it seemed, with all the events of his whole life, the most important one, the memory that he treasured the most, was of a summer day when he was very young, swinging on the porch and watching his grandmother. So he tried to go back to the porch and the swing and the dry cracking sound as the beans snapped and …

But the light was back.

Someone was moving around.

“Harrison. Can you hear me?”

He tried to speak but his mouth was dry, like sandpaper. He licked his lips, then nodded a tiny bit. “Yeah,” he whispered.

“It’s me, Freddy. How you doing in there?”

“Where am I?”

“Hospital. You had a bullet in your back. You lost a lot of blood. They operated and got the slug and plugged up all the places you were leaking.”

He nodded again, which was difficult. He was having trouble moving. He had no place to go anyway.

“Harrison, can you tell me what happened?”

He thought about it, trying to remember. It was difficult. The warehouse, driving around, all jumbled out of order. After a while he thought he had it straight. He said, “They came for me.”

“Anselmo?”

“And the other one. White guy. Pi … Pioche.”

That was right. He saw it clearly now. The stairwell, Fat Tony falling in the darkness, Freeman McNally screaming, the television shattering…. No. Something was mixed up some….

That scream. It had been almost in his ear, painfully loud, the man in mortal agony. And Harrison Ronald had enjoyed it. He lay here now immobile, his eyes closed, remembering. Savoring that scream.

“What else can you tell me?”

Why was Freddy so insistent? “He screamed,” Harrison said.

“Who?”

Who indeed! “Freeman.”

“Why did you kill him?”

Why? Well, hell, you idiot, because … “Because.”

“Hooper is gonna be over here in a few minutes to question you, Harrison. You killed eight guys. That’s real heavy shit. Real heavy. I think you should think through what you’re gonna say to Hooper very carefully. You dig me?”

Harrison sorted through it one more time. He felt like dog shit and he was getting sleepy again. “Nine guys.”

“Nine?”

“Think so. It’s pretty confusing.”

He was drifting again, back toward the porch and the swing and the bright, hot days when he heard Freddy say, “You sleep now. We’ll talk later.”

“Yeah,” he said, and tackled the problem of why his grandmother had white hair even back then. She was small and wiry and her hair was white as snow. It had been that way as long as he could remember.

“Senator Hiram Duquesne to see you, Mr. Hooper.”

The secretary rolled her eyes heavenward and stepped clear so that Senator Duquesne could enter. He was fat — not plump, not overweight, but fat — in his middle sixties. His double chin swung as he walked. Embedded in the fleshy face were two of the hardest eyes that Tom Hooper had ever stared at. They swept him now.

The senator dropped into a chair and waited until the door was closed behind him. “I’ve just come from a conference with the director,” he announced.

“Yessir. He called me.”

“I want to report an incident. I want a report made and an investigation done. I want it all in writing and dated and signed and I want a copy.”

Hooper grunted noncommittally. If FBI reports were going to be handed out the director would do the handing, not Hooper.

Just as Duquesne opened his mouth, the telephone rang. “Excuse me a second, Senator.” He picked up the instrument. “Yes.”

“Freddy is on the other line. Harrison is awake.”

“Tell him I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

As he cradled the phone Duquesne said, “You could ask her to hold your calls.”

“I don’t have that luxury, Senator. Tell me about this incident.”

Duquesne told him. From the first approach by T. Jefferson Brody several years ago to the incident last night in the parking garage of the Senate office building, he gave Hooper every incident and the details on every check. Hooper made notes and asked questions to clarify points. It took fifteen minutes.

Finally Duquesne announced, “There it is,” and Hooper leaned back in his chair and reviewed his notes.

“I want this pimp Brody arrested,” Senator Duquesne said. “I’ll take the heat.”

Hooper laid the legal pad back on the table. “What do I arrest him for?”

“Attempted bribery, extortion, I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either. Assuming that all the contributions to the PACs he controlled were made according to law, and you have given me no information to suggest otherwise, there’s nothing illegal about a notorious criminal making a political contribution. And people ask you to take positions on public issues twenty times a day.”

“Brody didn’t ask. He threatened me. I’m sure you can grasp the distinction between a request and a threat.”

“Threatened you with what? You said he said he would call a matter of public record to the attention of the media if you didn’t do what he wanted. I don’t think that qualifies as a threat.”

Duquesne’s face was turning a deep brick hue. “Listen to me, you little badge toter. Don’t give me one of those pissy nothing-can-be-done hog-crap sandwiches! I’m not going to listen to that!”

The expression on Hooper’s face didn’t change. “Senator, you have been had by a pro. Now listen carefully to what I’m going to say. By your own admission the man has done nothing illegal. He was the only other witness to this conversation, and believe me, he will deny everything that even throws a shadow on him.”

Duquesne was taking it hard. His throat worked as he sat and stared at the desk between them.

“Now, here is what we can do. We can look into the accounting and see if he obeyed all the rules on his PACs and his contributions. That will take time but might turn up something. Brody sounds cute, but the law in this area is a minefield.”

“That asshole wouldn’t slip up like that,” Duquesne said softly.

“The other thing we can do is put a wire on you and let you have another conversation with Brody. Maybe he’ll say something this time that does compromise him.”

“And me!”

“Perhaps. That’s a risk you’ll have to take.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Who else has this man approached? How many other members of Congress has he tried to influence?”

“I don’t know. But I seem to recall that somebody said he was giving money to Bob Cherry and three or four others.”

“That’ll be in their financial statements, right? We’ll look and see if we can find these names.”

“Where does that get us?”

“I’ll be frank, Senator. It may take someone someplace they don’t want to go. Freeman McNally is dead. He was killed last night.”

Duquesne was speechless. “Who did it?”

“We’re investigating. This information is confidential. We have not released the news of McNally’s death and would like to hold on to it for a while.”

Duquesne’s color faded to a ghastly white. Out of the clear blue sky he had just supplied the FBI with a motive for the murder of a man who had just been killed.

Hooper watched the senator with an expressionless face. He well knew what Duquesne was thinking and it didn’t bother Hooper a bit that he was thinking it.

“The good news,” the agent said after he had let Duquesne twist a while in the wind, “is that Freeman has made his last political contribution. In the fullness of time, probably fairly soon, T. Jefferson Brody will hear of Mr. McNally’s unfortunate demise. Of course he will still have a hold on you, but I doubt that he’ll be foolish enough to try to use it. He impresses me as a very careful fellow.”

“Cute. The bastard thinks he’s cute.”

“Ah, yes, don’t they all?”

Freddy was standing beside the nurses’ station listening to a man sitting in a wheelchair with his head swathed in bandages tell the cop all about his recent hair transplant. “You don’t know how demoralizing it is to lose your hair. It’s like you’re visibly deteriorating, aging, you know?”

Hooper came through the door, took the scene in at a glance and led Freddy toward the waiting area, which was empty. Behind him the man was explaining, “It was male pattern baldness all the way. My God, I felt so—”

“How is he?” Hooper asked as he pulled the door to the lounge closed.

“Sleeping again. The nurse said he’ll probably wake up in a little bit and we can talk to him then. She’ll come get me.”

“We found a body over at McNally’s house. Vinnie Pioche, I think. And the place had been shot apart. Someone just stood inside the door of each room and sprayed lead everywhere. It’s a real mess.”

“Probably Harrison. He said Pioche came with Anselmo to get him. And he said he thinks he killed nine men, but it’s real confusing.”

Hooper fell into one of the chairs.

“Did he say why?”

“Because. He said he did it because.”

“That’s real helpful. Just what I need to feed to the sharks in the U.S. attorney’s office.”

“He’s still under the anesthetic, Tom. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s saying.”

Hooper grunted and stared at his toes. Then he took off his shoes and massaged his feet. “We should have wrapped this one up in September.”

“We didn’t have enough in September,” Freddy said.

Hooper eyed him without humor, then put his shoes back on.

Fifteen minutes later the nurse opened the door and stuck her head in. “He’s awake. Don’t stay more than five minutes.”

Harrison Ronald had his eyes closed when the FBI agents stepped up to his bed, but the nurse nodded and left them. Freddy said, “Harrison, it’s me, Freddy. Tom Hooper is with me. How you feeling?”

Ford’s eyes came open and slowly moved around until they found Freddy. After a moment they went to Hooper.

“Hey, Tom.”

“Hey, Harrison. Sorry about this.”

“It’s over.”

“Yeah.”

Ford’s eyes closed again. Hooper looked at Freddy, who shrugged.

“Harrison,” Hooper said, “I need to ask you some questions, find out what happened. Why did you go to that warehouse anyway?”

The eyes focused on Hooper’s face. They stayed there a while, went to Freddy, then back to Hooper. Harrison Ronald licked his lips, then said, “I want a lawyer.”

“What?”

“A lawyer. I ain’t saying anything without my lawyer’s approval.”

“Aww, wait a goddamn minute! I’m not charging you with anything. You’re the sole witness to a serious—”

The word “crime” was right there on the tip of his tongue but he bit it off. He swallowed once. “All this has to be investigated. You know that. You’re a cop, for Chrissake!”

“I want a lawyer. That’s all I have to say.”

Hooper opened his mouth and closed it again. He glanced at Freddy, who was standing with his hands in his pockets regarding the man in the bed.

“Okay. We’ll get you a lawyer. I’ll stop by tomorrow and see how you’re doing.”

“Fine. See you then.”

“Come on, Freddy. We have work to do.”

Harrison Ronald Ford went back to sleep.