Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) (32 page)

“Let them talk,” the president said. “Besides, you’ll have the best seat in the house.”

“Lay in a bowl of popcorn and make a night of it at home,” Gonzales suggested with a wink.

“Popcorn and a speech,” Coventry commented. “Marie is going to love it.”

“All you have to do is stay alive and run the country, Jim,” the president said. “No big deal.”

The secretary of state nodded and smiled. “This is a good deal easier than campaigning for the job.”

The president snickered. “Tell me about it.”

TWENTY TWO

The Rat Equation

He had come a long, long way, Anne thought, and in a relatively short time. Darren Griggs was strong, and he wanted to be a survivor. But this afternoon, on a day and at a time when 90 percent of the city was lifting glasses of eggnog and similar spirits the Friday before Christmas, the survival instinct in her patient seemed dulled. Sitting in the temporary office some twelve blocks from her normal practice, Anne couldn’t deny that she harbored some melancholy herself.

“A couple minutes left,” Anne said, closing her notebook. “Do you want to tell me?”

“Darren smiled weakly. “I’m not trying to hide anything, Doctor. I’m just not sure it’s important.”

“Whatever it is it’s affecting you. I sense a touch of melancholy? Hmm?”

Darren pulled a postcard from his pocket and handed it to Anne. “It’s from Moises. Addressed to his mother, you can see.” A touch of anger, but that faded quickly. He was coming to understand not only his own emotions and motivations but also those of his absent son.

Anne flipped it over. The front was a picture of the Washington Monument in winter. The back held a simple message:
Mom, I’m all right. Don’t worry. Merry Christmas... Moises

“At least we know he’s alive,” Darren said. “The postmark says it was mailed in Baltimore. All the way across the country.”
Damn
. That was the anger talking again—the anger
cursing
, Darren corrected himself.

“How did Felicia react?” Anne asked, handing the card back.

“She cried, then wondered why he’s all the way across country. I guess she was also relieved that he’s okay. Or that he says he’s okay.”

“He’s making his own decisions now, Darren,” Anne told her patient.

Bad decisions
, Darren thought. “I know.”

There was a place for therapy, and there was a place for humanity, Anne knew. And for hope. “He wrote; maybe he’ll call.”

“Maybe,” Darren allowed. “His mother would like that.”

“Anyone else?”

Darren didn’t nod, didn’t deny it. He didn’t know if he was ready to talk to his son yet. There was one thing he was ready to do, though. He could easily throw his arms around his son and never let him go.

*  *  *

A stylized eagle done in dirty blue ink stretched across Chester Hart’s abdomen. Above the snarling bird two words stood out in red:
White Power
. There were other tattoos on the convict’s body. A cobra twisted around his arm, its bared fangs threatening from his bicep. Two impish demons held a buxom woman over a rock as a larger devil-like creature impaled her from behind. Tricolor flames rose from both shoulder blades, each point of fire ending in a silvery dagger. These were all visible, worn like badges of honor and allegiance by a shirtless Hart as he pressed the two hundred pounds off his chest in the exercise yard of California’s Folsom State Prison.

“You’re a fucking fool, Chet,” a barrel-chested white inmate commented. There were only whites around the weight set at this time of the morning. It was their time. The blacks had it after lunch. The Mexicans and any others just before dinner. It was the way of the yard. The law of the jungle.

“Whaaaaaaaat?” Hart asked as the bar shot up.

“You’re gonna freeze your tits off,” the inmate said, laughing. Two other inmates quietly walked away from the weight set. “It’s hardly forty out here.”

“Soooooo!”

Two more slinked back, leaving just Hart pressing and the inmate jawing. Someone had to keep his attention...for a moment.

“Sehhhhhhh-vun!”

Now a new inmate approached, sliding through the wall of white inmates that had formed a loose circle around the scene. A large paper cup was in his right hand. A glowing cigarette was in his left.

“Eighhhhhht!”

The cup holder stopped two paces short of Hart, on the blind side of tower two. Tower three was temporarily empty because of rats. There were ways to know such things, and inmates often did.

“Hart.”

Chester let the bar rest on his well-developed chest and looked to the right. He saw for the first time that no one stood near him.
Shit!

The inmate heaved the contents of the cup on Hart, aiming for the face. His aim was off. Most of the strong-smelling liquid splashed on his target’s chest and ran down to the padded weight bench.

“Rats in the tower,” the inmate said. “Rats in the yard.” He smiled and flicked the burning cigarette at Hart. It tumbled through the air and skidded across his chest, igniting the paint thinner.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Hart screamed as a red hot flash washed over his upper body. It was loud, like a train rolling over him, but not loud enough to drown out the laughter. “HELLLLLLLLLP!”

All he got from his AB brethren was more laughter. As guards rushed to him, Chester Hart knew what was happening. He had been marked for death. A contract was out on him, and not just any. He could have been easily shanked with little fuss and he’d be deader than dead. No, this was a contract with a condition: kill with style. It was a message hit, and Hart knew the message all were supposed to receive—informants die a horrible death. It was his new reality now. He’d tried to live on the fence, and this was where it had gotten him...flesh burning, pinned on his back by a weight bar he could not lift. Yes, he had walked in both worlds, one of which had just told him to get lost.

But Chester Hart, ninth-grade education and all, was not about to surrender to the reality the Brotherhood had chosen for him. He knew this attack would not kill him. There would be a tomorrow. Not a pleasant one, but a tomorrow still. And there was always the other world, a world he knew he had a ticket to enter.

*  *  *

“Did you like my gift?” Art asked as Anne’s head rose and fell with his breathing.

‘Which one?” she asked.

“You know which one,” Art said. He could feel the bracelet skim the hair on his chest as Anne ran a finger back and forth through what she called his “fur.”

“It’s beautiful.” And it was. The other presents had been nice, and opening them on Christmas Eve with the man she loved had only made it nicer. No: sweeter. “You spoil me, G-Man. This was expensive.”

“And those skis weren’t?” he responded, ending her uninspired protest. It had been a perfect Christmas Eve, and he was determined to make the most of the following morning before he had to jump back into his work mode and hop an American Airlines flight to Washington National Airport. “We should have saved at least one gift for the morning.”

“We’re both bad,” Anne said.

Art ran a hand up her bare back and massaged her shoulder, listening to her breathe. Listening to the silence. The doctor had something on her mind. Art knew what it was. “I haven’t said anything, but thank you for not asking about Chicago.” Art felt her breathing change, becoming more relaxed.

“I know it’s been on your mind,” Anne admitted. “Have you made any decisions?”

“No. I didn’t really think I’d consider it seriously, but... I’ve been thinking about it.”

“Your old stomping grounds,” Anne observed.

“It gets cold,” Art remembered.
Weather isn’t everything, Arthur.
“And it’s a long way from here.”

Anne shifted position a bit, bringing her face closer to Art’s cheek. “Chas Ohlmeyer runs the human relations department at the University of Chicago.”

“Your old classmate,” Art said. He was surprised at her lack of subtlety. She was saying so much in a very few words, and he loved her more for it.

“Mm-hmm,” Anne confirmed. “What time is your flight?”

“Three.”

“You need a ride to LAX?”

“Someone from the office is dropping Frankie and me.”

“When will you be back?”

“I’m not sure. Soon, I hope. As soon as we find...them.” What did one call the NALF? Revolutionaries. Scum. Militants. Murderers. What, indeed? And to Art there was still the question of John Barrish. Labeling him was easier: aberration. “Who knows, you may get to D.C. before I get out. When are you three going, by the way?”

“The fifteenth of next month,” Anne answered. “But that’s hush-hush. I even had a visit from the Secret Service last Thursday.”

“Nerves,” Art said. And well founded, he thought. But she didn’t need to know that. “I’m gonna miss you.”

Anne slid her arms around his neck and held on, tighter than she realized. “You, too.”

Art knew the reason behind the gesture. It had nothing to do with his being three thousand miles from her for a relatively short period of time; it had everything to do with what would happen once they were together again. And he suspected the emotion behind her trepidation was not fear, but anticipation. It was for him.

TWENTY THREE

Points of Reference

Congressman Richard Vorhees kept the pace brisk as the cool night air washed over him. Speed walking, some called it, that awkward-looking process of exercise or competition that made its practitioners look as though their legs were about to swivel loose of their hips. Vorhees didn’t care about appearances in this endeavor, though. This was his dose of aerobic exertion for the day. At one time in his life his work had kept him in shape—jumping from perfectly airworthy aircraft into the forest to hump a ruck for days on end usually did that to one. Now this was it.

But he couldn’t complain...too much. The job had stature, and he was coming through probably the darkest period of his political life relatively unscathed. All by being honest. As his feet—one real, one not—pushed his trim frame back toward home from his nightly five-miler along Leesburg Pike and its periphery streets, the congressman marveled briefly that he’d survived it all at the hand of the truth. Amazing. It wasn’t a trend he planned to continue, though. Not that one was “less than forthright” intentionally; it was simply a matter of necessity in government. The truth often was less important than being right. There was a difference, Vorhees knew.

So he walked at night to keep his heart strong, went home and massaged the soreness from the stump of flesh below his left knee, showered, slept, and got up the next day. Then off to battle, albeit a quieter kind of conflict than that which he’d seen as an officer in the 82nd. A quiet fight, a good fight. At the end of each day that was what counted. Not your wounds, but that you would fight again. That was the—

“Congressman!”

Vorhees slowed his pace at the call, putting on the brakes fully and turning to see two people, a man and a woman, trotting along the sidewalk to catch up with him. Leaves from the residential lawns blew across their path, and the motion of the man’s body twisted his jacket to the side to reveal a badge on his belt.
Shit! Not you again. I thought I dodged your asses a month and a half ago.

“Congressman,” Art said, stopping after their short jog. Frankie was at his side. “I’m Special Agent Art Jefferson, FBI. This is Special Agent Frankie Aguirre. We were hoping you’d give us a minute of your time.”

Vorhees feigned breathlessness and bent forward, hands on knees. “I’m right at the end of my walk, Agent Jefferson.”

“It’ll just take a minute,” Art insisted diplomatically.

“We just have a few questions, sir,” Frankie added.

Vorhees straightened, shifting his bad leg a bit for better balance, and nodded. “All right.”

“We got your statement last month when we were in town, but there are a couple things we need to know beyond that.” Art let that hang for just a second. He wanted more than anything to gauge Vorhees’s reaction to their just being there. It wasn’t that he thought Vorhees was dirty, it was simply that he didn’t want the man to hold anything back that, though it might be embarrassing to him, would help them get their job done. “Nikolai Kostin—did you ever meet him? Face to face?”

Vorhees shook his head and breathed the Virginia night air deeply. “Never.”

“How much did Monte Royce tell you about him?” Art asked.

“The particulars,” Vorhees answered. “His position in the Russian and Soviet militaries. His expertise.”

“No red flags in any of that?” Frankie inquired. A hint of skepticism flavored the question.

“At the time I thought it would be better to have his kind of expertise in our country than in, say, Iran. Or Libya. Or Vietnam.”

“And Royce was vouching for him,” Frankie observed. “That was enough?”

“I thought so.” A little defiant, but also apologetic. It was the first lesson of excelling in D.C.: Craft your response perfectly.

“Did Monte Royce ever ask for any other favors?”

Vorhees eyed the black agent. “I don’t do favors.”

Of course not, Saint Richard
. Let’s change the wording to something more palatable, Art thought. “Assistance, then?”

“I don’t recall at the moment,” Vorhees said, bringing both hands to his hips to signal impatience.

“How long did you know Monte Royce?” Royce was Vorhees’s link to this, Art knew. It was the place to apply pressure.

“A number of years.” The response was short.
Get the message, Jefferson. You don’t grill a United States congressman like this. You don’t grill me like this.

“Did you attend his funeral?”

Vorhees sneered at the question.
Funeral?
There’s your exit.
“I was busy. Agent Jefferson, if you don’t mind, I have things to do. This is not a good night for me. I have to attend a good friend’s funeral tomorrow.”
Poor John. Victim of a bump and rob. But why did they leave his new Suburban?
The police were probably trying to figure that out, too. But at least the body hadn’t lain for weeks rotting in some wooded ditch somewhere. His killers were
decent
enough to leave him by a road. It had still taken more than two days to locate it. And now the congressman had to find a new orthopedic. “If you are so interested in Monte Royce, which you seem to be from your questions, then why don’t you talk to Senator Crippen.”