Line of Succession (6 page)

The Reverend Mosley stepped down and the Clerk of the House approached the microphone. Bob Walberg looked at his watch.

“Representatives-elect to the Ninety-fifth Congress, this is the day fixed by the Twentieth Amendment of the Constitution and Public Law nine-four-dash-six-four-three of the Ninety-fourth Congress for the meeting of the Ninety-fifth Congress of the United States. As the law directs, the Clerk of the House has prepared the official roll of the Representatives-elect. Credentials for the four hundred and thirty-five districts to be represented in the Ninety-fifth Congress have been received, and are now on file with the Clerk of the Ninety-fourth Congress.…”

It was no good telling him what a hypocritical old klutz he was. He wouldn't know the truth if it kicked him in the teeth. Sending contributions to Israel and keeping his accounts in a bank that did business with South Africa and you just couldn't make him see.

“The reading clerk will call the roll.”

“The state of Alabama. Mr. Price…”

Sixteen past noon. Another eight or ten minutes, and out. The thing was not to look like you were in a hurry. Ask the guard on the way out where the men's room is.

“The state of Mississippi. Mr. Bailey…”

He could almost feel it ticking between his ankles. His watch: twelve-nineteen. It was due to go off at twelve-forty; all of them were. Get out at twelve-twenty-five, he thought. That'll give me fifteen minutes to get clear. Linc will have the car ready by the corner of the New Senate Office Building, and Darleen's got the Oldsmobile parked up on Tennessee Avenue so we can make the swap: if some idiot gets the license number of the first car we'll still be away clean. By the time they start setting up roadblocks we'll be on our way through Baltimore, heading for the Jersey Turnpike.

Martyrs are cheap,
Stratten had drummed into them.
Any stupid head can be a martyr. We've got to prove you can do it and get away with it. That's the whole point, isn't it. Not just that you can attack the Establishment, but that the Establishment's powerless to do a thing about it.

The bird next to Bob Walberg was giving him an odd glance. Bob straightened his face and pretended to jot a shorthand note in the pad on his knee.

“The roll call discloses that four hundred and twenty-seven Representatives-elect have answered to their names. A quorum is present. Now the next order of business is the election of a Speaker of the House of Representatives for the Ninety-fifth Congress. Nominations are now in order.… The chair recognizes Mr. Breckenyear of Louisiana.”

“Mr. Clerk, as chairman of the Democratic caucus, I am directed by the unanimous vote of that caucus to present for re-election to the office of Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Ninety-fifth Congress the name of the Honorable Milton C. Luke, a Representative-elect from the State of Connecticut.”

“The chair recognizes Mr. Wood of California.”

“Mr. Clerk, as chairman of the Republican conference and by authority, direction, and unanimous vote of that conference, I nominate for Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Ninety-fifth Congress the Honorable Philip Krayle, a Representative-elect from the State of New York.”

“The Honorable Milton C. Luke, a Representative-elect from the State of Connecticut, and the Honorable Philip Krayle, a Representative-elect from the State of New York, have been placed in nomination. Are there further nominations? … There being no further nominations, the Clerk will appoint tellers. The Clerk appoints the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Block, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Westlake, the gentlewoman from California, Mrs. Ludlum, and the gentlewoman from Vermont, Mrs. Morrison. Tellers will come forward and take their seats at the desk in front of the Speaker's rostrum. The roll will now be called, and those responding to their names will indicate by surname the nominee of their choice—Luke or Krayle. The reading clerk will now call the roll.”

“The State of Alabama. Mr. Price.…”

Bob Walberg looked at his watch and looked up across the gallery. Sandra was watching him.

It was time. He stood up, apologizing
sotto voce
to the lady beside him; he placed his briefcase on the seat, as if to save it for his return, and made his way out into the aisle past the lady's knees, and turned up to the back of the gallery. The uniformed guard watched him approach. Bob Walberg whispered in the guard's ear and the guard pointed and whispered something which Bob Walberg didn't catch, but he nodded and thanked the guard and slipped out.

12:30
P.M. EST
The East Portico afforded the best exit from the Capitol because you could head right out Maryland or Pennsylvania Avenue without getting tangled in the tortured traffic patterns of the Mall. With that in mind David Lime had posted himself beside the radio car on East Capitol Street immediately below the Portico where he could watch the faces of those who emerged from the building. It was a long shot; of course it was a long shot—everything was.

He kept fighting the impulse to reach into the car and snatch up the microphone and bleat into it: has anybody found anything? They would let him know if they did.

He looked around again, turning a full circle on his heels, and now he began to develop an interest in the spruce-green Plymouth that had pulled up at the curb below the New Senate Office Building. It had a young man in a self-conscious Afro at the wheel and white wisps of exhaust flailing from its tailpipe. Lime automatically noted the license number in his pocket pad and this time he succumbed to the urge to reach for the microphone.

“Dispatch, this is Lime.”

“Go ahead Lime.”

“Have you got a squadrol on Maryland Avenue between here and Stanton Square?”

“Hold on.… Car Five Niner, you on Maryland? Whereabouts? Okay, stand by.… Hello Lime?”

“Right here.”

“Affirmative your query.”

“Request you hold your car on Maryland until further notice from me.”

He heard Dispatch relay the message to Car 59 and re-experienced the irritation he always felt when dealing with vehicular patrols: you had contact with Dispatch but not with other cars and therefore everything had to be relayed through Dispatch. It was the only method that made real sense but nevertheless it was annoying.

Lime said into the microphone, “Convey this to Car Five Niner, please. A ‘Seventy-two Plymouth four-door, blue-green, license New Jersey Samuel Bravo Dog Three Three Four. If that car comes north on Maryland with more than one person in it, I want it stopped.”

“Affirmative Lime.… Car Five Niner——”

Lime handed the microphone to the driver and turned to look up at the Capitol steps. Chad Hill was coming down two steps at a time, not out of any visible urgency but simply because that was the way he liked to move. When Lime had asked for his transfer out of NSA and they had shunted him over to Secret Service he had not succeeded in bringing any of his own people with him and he had been forced to pick an aide from among strangers. Having hired Chad Hill he was able to find no plausible reason to fire him; but Hill had an uncanny capacity to irritate him right up to the breaking point:
God save us from eager beavers.

Chad Hill reached the car and gave him a pained look. “We've eyeballed everybody in the visitors' gallery and the uniformed boys have done a second go-round on packages and handbags.”

“Nothing?”

“Not a damn thing.”

“What about the press gallery?”

Hill's head jerked back. “My God. I never thought of that.”

Neither did I until just now.
Lime said gently, “Do it then.”

“Yes sir.”

Chad Hill turned to trot away and Lime's glance rode up past him to the top of the steps. Lime said, “Never mind, Chad.”

“What?” Hill was swinging back.

A middle-aged black woman had emerged at the Portico and Lime had a feeling that was Beulah Moorehead from Los Angeles, and he was sure of it when the Walberg twins loped out behind her.

Lime talked fast. “Get inside—tell our people to get to the PA mikes and clear the building. I'm calling the bomb squad. On the run, now.”

Lime put his hand into the car window and the driver slapped the microphone into it. Two more people emerged at the Portico and trotted down the steps behind Mrs. Moorehead and the Walbergs. They were slanting north as they came down the wide steps—heading generally in the direction of the green Plymouth—and Lime barked into the mike, “Bomb Squad, Dispatch. Make it fast. I've made five suspects leaving the building. Tell Bomb Squad to start looking in the press galleries in both chambers. I'm having the building cleared now. Tell Car Five Niner to remain on station to pick up that green Plymouth if it gets away from me. Out.” He tossed the mike in past the driver and wrenched the door open. “Come on with me.”

“On foot?”

“Does your union prohibit it? Get your hand near your piece.” Lime was in motion, heading across the soggy dead grass with his plunging stride, a fresh cigarette dangling unlit. The driver panted to catch up. Ahead of them the five people were moving straight toward the Plymouth, walking very fast. Lime began to run, sweeping back the side-vented coat that accommodated his service revolver. He raised his arm overhead; his hand described a quick arc and Secret Service men began to converge from several points.

Now the five were piling into the Plymouth, still unaware they had been made. The agent from the Senate Office Building doorway reached the passenger side of the car and showed them his gun. Lime, on his toes and running full out, couldn't hear anything with the wind slapping his ears; the agent was talking into the car and then a burst of white exhaust puffed from the car's pipe and the car was squealing out into the avenue. The agent spun all the way around, knocked off his feet.

It was about forty yards: Lime got down on one knee and braced his shooting arm in the open palm of his left hand and shot for the tires, cocking the revolver with his thumb and firing single-action, six very rapid ones; then he was on his feet and running again, searching his pockets for fresh ammunition.

He had exploded a rear tire but the Plymouth was still going, lumping along on the rim. Probably doing thirty miles an hour, with Lime and his men running after it. It was a block ahead when the squadrol, its red and blue lights flashing, came in sight on a collision course and slewed across the Avenue, blocking traffic in both directions and sealing off the Plymouth.

Lime kept running, his coat flying, plugging cartridges into the side-swung cylinder of the S & W, and beyond the Plymouth the uniformed EPS cops were pouring out of the cruiser and clawing for their .38's—it was not yet certain the Plymouth wouldn't ram the squadrol. There was a great racket: the cruiser's blockage had caused a rear-end chain collision in the far lanes of the avenue and there were bangs and squeals and grunts of metal. The Plymouth was lurching toward the curb and when Lime saw that they were trying to drive it up on the sidewalk to eel past the cruiser he dropped to his knee again and began to shoot with care. The EPS cops followed his lead and almost instantly someone's bullet exploded a front tire and the Plymouth rocked over against the building wall, narrowly missing a terrorized pedestrian. The Plymouth dug its bumper corner into the building and it wasn't going anywhere after that. Its doors popped open on the near side but the EPS cops had it enfiladed and Lime was coming in on the dead run, and when the six people climbed out of the car they had their hands in the air like victims of a stagecoach robbery in a John Ford movie.

Lime pushed past the uniformed cops. He was puffing, and angry with himself for it: he hadn't run more than three blocks' distance. In college he had done the four-forty with no effort at all. He swept his glance over the six from the car, trying to single out the leader, but he couldn't pick a spokesman by looking at them—so he made an arbitrary choice: he selected the weakest-looking face and went to work on Robert Walberg.

The crowd from the wrecked cars in the avenue was making so much noise Lime could barely hear himself. He waved a couple of cops toward the incensed civilians and addressed himself to the Walberg boy. A muscle worked at the back of Walberg's jaw. Lime kept talking to him: “Where are the bombs, boy? Where'd you leave them? Come on, let's have it. Where'd you put the bombs, Bobby?”

If you know the name, use the diminutive; it helps break them down, it makes you Authority. Maybe they'd called him Robbie or Bob-o but Bobby was most common, most likely. “Come on, Bobby.” Lime had a cigarette between his lips; he struck a match but did not stop talking so that the cigarette pumped up and down violently while he tried to light it; he succeeded only in blowing out the match, and tried another.

Walberg's eyes mirrored his terror and Lime didn't even give him time to answer: he mentioned Stratten and Alvin Corby and made it very clear to Walberg that he knew everything: that he knew a great deal more than he did in fact know; and finally he let himself run down and waited for Walberg's answer.

It might have worked but the big black one in the Afro butted in and none of the cops had the sense to stop him. “Don't tell the pig nothing, boy. You go get fucked, honkie. We don't tell you mothers nothing.”

Lime made an angry gesture and his driver whipped past and yanked the big Negro away. It was probably too late after that but Lime kept pushing Walberg: “Come on, Bobby. Where are the devices? When are they set to go off? Come on, Bobby.” He had the gun in his fist and he allowed the terrible rage to leak out through his eyes; he was right up close against Walberg, breathing smoke into the boy's face, and the boy's jaw was juddering with fright.

Then Lime heard the muted chug of the first explosion, like a hard-cued break against a rack of pool balls, and his face changed with the realization that his questions were too late.