Atropos (29 page)

“I know that, too. Don’t worry. This isn’t that big a city.”

“Better get moving. It’s getting late.”

Trotter looked at his watch. Eight-oh-five. The speech was set for nine.

“What are you going to do?” Rines asked.

“I’m going to get right over to the hotel and start looking.”

“We’ll have people out there by morning,” Rines said. “To help you mop up, if nothing else.”

“Yeah. Or to mop me up. I’ll check in later.”

Trotter hung up the phone, yelled across the room to the skeleton crew of journalists that he was leaving (keep up the cover at all costs) and walked out into the deep twilight of the June night.

T
HE NOTE WAS WRITTEN
in crude block letters on hotel stationery with a hotel pen. Mark had written it with his left hand using a pebble-grained fake leather phone-book cover as backing. There was no way the handwriting could ever be traced. The Senator would believe it only because Mark was going to deliver it in person.

He was waiting outside the stage entrance of the Grand Ballroom as his father walked next to Governor Babington, laughing and smiling and ignoring the inner shell of Secret Service men and the outer shell of journalists that surrounded them.

Mark managed to filter through. The Secret Service men were going to stop him, but Babington recognized Mark and told his guards to let the young man through. Mark had been counting on that. The Governor was too experienced an operator to take a chance on offending the Senator, especially when he was just minutes away from delivering the endorsement that would all but ensure the nomination and probably the White House.

“Governor,” Mark said. “Congratulations! I couldn’t be happier. I won’t be able to stick around, so I’m getting my best wishes in now.”

Babington stuck out his hand. Mark had been expecting that, too. The note rested securely in his left palm. Mark took the Governor’s hand, dropped it, then turned to his father. “You, too, Dad,” he said. He brought his hands together and shifted the note. “You made the best-possible choice.”

The Senator flashed his famous smile for the cameras. “Glad he said that—Mark’s got the best political mind in the family.” The press, or at least enough of them to gratify the Senator, laughed dutifully. Still playing to the cameras, the Senator shook hands with his son. Mark gave his father a significant look as he passed him the note. The Senator returned the look, then smiled again.

As Mark walked away, he was surprised to realize that he could not remember ever shaking hands with his father before. He must have, he was sure, he just couldn’t remember it. It didn’t really matter.

The procession entered the Grand Ballroom, leaving silence in its wake. Mark walked about forty yards in the opposite direction. He turned the corner, then stopped at the fire-hose installation. He opened the glass and took a brown paper bag from behind the hose itself. Then he carefully closed the glass, and wiped the handle with his sleeve.

He walked back to the Grand Ballroom. The guard at the door was an amateur. The Secret Service would draw their perimeter closer to Babington, and Mark had no intention of getting anywhere near Governor Babington. This guy remembered Mark from the crowd that had come by before, and waved him right in.

There was a row of dressing rooms in back of the ballroom, accommodations for the second-rate singers and washed-up TV stars that appeared at “The State Capital’s Number-One Night Spot!” as the posters in the elevator had it. Mark had been all around here this afternoon. He’d decided on dressing room “D.”

Dressing room “D” was farthest from the ballroom itself, closest to the fire stairs. If Babington or Mark’s father were to use anything at all, they wouldn’t go any farther than room “A.”

There was only one chair in the room, a bench, really, stuck in front of a tacky, pinkish-beige lighted makeup mirror. Mark went to it and sat down. There were about ten feet of gray carpet between him and the door. Mark toyed with the idea of facing the mirror, of greeting his father with his back to him, but he decided against it. There was no need to be theatrical. This was far too serious.

And it would go on being serious, even afterward. Even after Senator Henry Van Horn joined the ranks of martyred Van Horn heroes, when no one would dare whisper the name of Pina Girolamo, let alone play so-called “incriminating” tapes of the incident
(what’s the matter with you people, have you no sense of dignity at all?),
when the mantle of holiness, enhanced by the blood of yet another Van Horn, descended on the waiting shoulders of the grieving son, Mark Van Horn would still be in danger.

Because people would know. Not many, but important ones. Ainley Masters, for instance. Ainley could hardly fail to figure it out—Mark, after all, had practically warned him it was coming. But Ainley had winked at murder before, when the power of the Van Horns had been in danger. Who was more aware than Ainley that the greatest danger the family had ever faced was the stupidity of its current head? What would he say if he knew Hank had delivered the power of the Van Horns into the hands of the Russians? Mark would make sure he did know.

Ainley would squirm; he might balk at first. But he’d come along. If things really got desperate, Mark could probably force himself to cozy up to Ainley in a physical way. It had been obvious to Mark since he was twelve that Ainley had it bad for him. Sometimes, Mark wondered if Ainley himself knew.

If that didn’t work, Ainley would have to go. It would be a shame. The road ahead would have lots of hidden turns, and there was no better guide through that sort of territory than Ainley Masters.

But in the long run, Ainley didn’t matter. Ainley could be taken care of.

The Russians would know, too. General Dudakov, or whatever his real name was.

Mark figured he would have a year, maybe two, before the Russians came after him. They had their own tricky game on, and the death of yet another Van Horn would be a wild card that could cost them the whole thing. They’d take things nice and easy, and secure the White House for Babington before they made any move against Mark.

That, at least, was the way Mark had to play it. That was why he had decided to do this
after
the endorsement speech. Let the Russians have their fun. Their success would be Mark’s own.

Because Mark would be in the next Congress—he was over twenty-five, and even now, no power on earth could keep a Van Horn from winning an election in the home state. After Hank was dead, the voters back home would gladly elect him God, if the Constitution allowed it.

But he would be different from all other freshman congressmen. Mark Van Horn would know for a fact that the President of the United States was a Russian agent. And he would have the media access and the clout to get that assertion thoroughly investigated, if not instantly believed, should he choose to make it.

Not that he planned to so choose. It was just that he intended to make sure the White House was very friendly to any legislation he might propose. The legislation, of course, would all be carefully designed to aid and ennoble the American People. It would be even more carefully designed to add to the power and riches of the Van Horn family, as represented by heroic young Mark Van Horn.

His plan was to make himself indispensable. Being on the inside, he could be a great help in furthering General Dudakov’s plans, whatever they might be. For a time. After all, Babington couldn’t be President forever.

Time would tell. All he could do was to continue to act boldly. He was having a lot of fun in the meantime.

Mark grinned at the door and waited for his father.

H
ANK DIDN’T GET A
chance to read Mark’s note until he was actually at the rostrum, about to deliver his endorsement. It wasn’t really a problem. He just mixed it in with his prepared statement, and took a moment to look it over before he raised his head to speak.

It was all in a sort of scribbly block printing, but it was legible enough. It read:

IMPORTANT. SEE ME IMMEDIATELY AFTER SPEECH, DRESSING ROOM D BEHIND CURTAIN, STRAIGHT BACK, 3RD DOOR ON RIGHT. TELL NO ONE.

Tell no one. All right. He crumpled the note tightly in his hand, and looked upon the assembled journalists. “I want to get this absolutely right,” he said.

He then proceeded to endorse Governor Babington in terms both glowing and vague. It was the best he could do—he hardly knew the fellow. He
did
know Abweg, curiously enough. Things might be a little cool between him and Stephen back under the dome, but that was politics. Nothing personal. Stephen would come to see that in time.

He went on to say that all of the candidates were fine men (though most of them had dropped out after New Hampshire) but that he had decided to lend his support to Governor Babington because of his experience as a chief executive and because of his vision of a greater America.

Hank was an experienced speaker, especially experienced in talking to the press. He could tell when what he was selling was going across. This was going surprisingly well, considering that if anyone thought about it for thirty seconds they would see that he could be delivering exactly the same speech in endorsing Abweg. The only difference would have been that he was backing Abweg for his “experience in the workings of the Nation’s Capital” in addition to his vision of a greater America.

This further told Hank that he truly was riding the coattails of history, that the press had been pulling for Abweg all along. Hank had been amazed to discover, years ago, that a lot of reporters honestly believed that the press didn’t have a collective favorite it steered toward nomination. After that, they had never worried him again.

Hank finished his speech, and posed for pictures with Babington and his wife. The press hollered questions. Would there perhaps be a job for you in a Babington administration, Senator? “I think I could be of more help in the Senate.” What specific programs of the Governor’s are you most enthusiastic about, Senator? “It’s not the specific programs, fine as they are, that have claimed my support; it’s the Governor’s
vision
of a greater
America,
as evidenced by those programs, that has led me to back him, as I urge all my fellow Americans to do.” Then, with one question answered and one question successfully ducked, he smiled and waved his way to the back of the stage. He took a quick look around. The mob had descended on the candidate; the Secret Service was closing in to protect him. Hank slipped quietly through the blue-green satin curtain.

It was easy enough to find the corridor where the dressing rooms were. Hank looked down the hallway and saw light leaking through a crack at the bottom of one of the doors. He walked over to it. Dressing room “D.”

The Senator knocked on the door.

“Come in.” It was Mark’s voice. The Senator let his breath go. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding it.

He stepped inside a small room. Mark was sitting at a makeup table at the other end, facing the door. He had a brown paper bag in his lap.

“Hello, son.”

“Hi, Dad.” Mark’s voice was dead. Hank wondered what was wrong.

“What’s up? Anything wrong?”

Mark said nothing. His hand went inside the bag and came out again. It was holding a silenced automatic.

Hank felt something thump against his chest. It was like being hit with a line drive. He tasted dirt in his mouth before he even knew he was falling. His eyes happened to be pointed in the right direction, so he saw Mark stand up and begin to walk toward him.

Hank tried to get up. Failed. Tried to crawl for the door. Mark reached across the top of him and slammed it shut. Painfully, Hank turned over and looked at his son. He wanted to ask why, wanted to ask Mark if he’d gone crazy, but he seemed to be able to make only gurgling noises. Wetness fell down his chin.

Mark said, “Sorry, Dad.” The gun coughed again.

Hank hardly felt it. He was thinking,
you didn’t have to be so cruel about it.
Hell, I was nicer to Pina; I was, she didn’t suffer at all.

As he lost consciousness, he was wondering if maybe Pina would be waiting for him somewhere. And if she held a grudge.

T
ROTTER’S LUCK HAD BEEN
running bad since he’d hit the hotel. He wanted to find Bash in the lobby and tell her her meeting with Mark Van Horn was off. She wasn’t in the lobby, and she wasn’t in the bar off the lobby. He didn’t have time to look anywhere else. The TV in the bar was tuned to CNN, which was carrying Senator Van Horn’s speech live from upstairs.

“Screw this,” somebody said. “Ain’t the Royals playing or something?”

“For Christ’s sake, Dave,” the bartender told him. “This is history in the goddam making under this very roof.”

“Yeah, but it’s politics. I don’t get politics. I get baseball.”

Trotter walked out before the issue was decided.

He made a beeline for the elevators and the Grand Ballroom. This is what I get, he thought, for waiting so long to have my brainstorm.

What he’d wanted to do was to find Mark Van Horn and take him out of circulation quietly, take him somewhere private where he could be made to answer some important questions, such as, was Joe Albright indeed at SkyGrain, and if so, exactly where, and who was watching him? More elaborate questioning could wait until later.

There might not be time for that. The only place Trotter could be sure Mark Van Horn was going to show up was in the vicinity of his father. Mark didn’t seem to be the bomb-planting type—he struck Trotter as more the in-your-face kind of killer—but of course you never knew, and wasn’t that a jolly thought?

Trotter would have to attach himself to the Senator and wait for Mark to show up, with or without lethal intent. This could be embarrassingly public, not to say dangerous.

Trotter’s Hudson Group press credentials got him inside the Grand Ballroom just at the end of the Senator’s remarks. Governor Babington was beaming. Trotter had seen thousands of politicians up close, and they invariably beamed brighter the closer they got to the Presidency. He had wondered more than once what kind of psyche it took to rush toward the responsibility for preserving or destroying the world and every living thing on it with a huge smile on your face.