Political Suicide (32 page)

“Maybe seven minutes,” Lou said.

The rustic office triggered unpleasant memories. If not for Papa Steve, this place would have housed his last minutes on earth. They went directly to the case in the small room behind Brody’s desk. Papa Steve’s intelligence was on the button—the polished antique Colt military pistol was at the center of the display, right where he said it probably would be. It would leave a six left twist rifling mark on any bullet it fired.

In the distance, the soft sounds of impending triumph. The tide of the conflict had turned. The mop-up was beginning.

“Okay, time to get cracking,” Lou said, checking his watch. “We’re at about the five-minute mark now.”

Cap spent a few moments studying the situation—a sculptor eyeing a block of marble before putting mallet to chisel. “The case is alarmed with glass-break sensors, anticipating a smash-and-grab, but the actual lock wasn’t a priority. It’s a Yale. Tough but not killer tough.”

Cap deftly slid another long hooked tool into the lock. His muscular frame, the body that had battered dozens of fighters in the ring, seemed calm and totally at ease. From his years of suturing facial and tendon lacerations, Lou had no trouble relating to the all-consuming concentration.

“The plug hole has beveled edges,” Cap said, speaking much more to himself than to Lou, “and the ends of the key pins are rounded off. I’ve got to do a bit more scrubbing because the driver pins are set on the bevel. Can’t turn the plug if the driver’s caught on the bevel. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

The music outside was intensifying—frenetic string runs, crashing cymbals, horns blaring the French national anthem, a timpani foreshadowing the cannonade to come. Then, the penultimate passages—pastoral melodies, the utter exhaustion of the troops. Lou guessed they had four minutes to get the case open, unhinge the gun, and make it back to the truck.

“Damn. I’ve got the pins set, but the lock isn’t opening,” Cap murmured. “Reduce the torque and keep scrubbing over these pins. That’s all I can do.”

“Two more minutes, and we’ve got to smash the case and take our chances with the alarm,” Lou said.

He shifted on his heels, watching his friend work. Outside, the music was again building. The fireworks explosions were rattling the display cases. The finale was near. At the instant bells began chiming in the soundtrack, the lock popped with a satisfying click, and the case opened. The Colt, not fixed to the velvet-lined back, rested on a pair of hooks. Cap lifted it free and placed it in his knapsack along with his tools.

“We’ve got to move, Cap! Now!”

Lou shifted a pistol from the bottom row to fill in the space the Colt had occupied. Then he carefully closed the case and followed Cap through the office to the porch. They reached the courtyard just at the start of the overture’s dramatic climax. The speakers blared out the brass section’s recapitulation of earlier themes. Branches shook as runs by the strings and woodwinds blended in versions of “God Save the Tsar.”

The fireworks had slowed. Off in the distance, to his left, Lou saw the lights of three helicopters rise slowly and majestically into the smoke-filled sky. The moment the choppers lifted off, the cannonade began. The finale. Howitzer booms reverberated through Lou’s chest and seemed to rattle the fillings in his teeth as massive rosettes—red, purple, and blue starbursts—filled the sky. For a moment, Lou was in his college dorm room, getting psyched for finals with Dr. Strange.

Up ahead, Papa Steve was standing by the truck, urgently motioning for them to hurry. He was holding something up in his left hand.

Lou had no doubt it was a detonator.

CHAPTER 43

Shoulder to shoulder, Lou and Cap had taken three steps toward Papa Steve when a Mantis guard stepped out from a building to their left.

“Freeze right there or I’ll shoot!”

Lou whirled in the direction of the voice and dropped facedown on the hardened dirt. The overture climax continued, with cannon fire booming from the PA system as though the base were under siege.

And then, in an instant, it was.

Military vehicles parked along the road began to explode, one after the other. Bright orange flames shot into the night. Glass shattered, sending jagged shards in all directions. Trucks and jeeps thrown into the air landed with a bone-rattling crunch of metal. A pair of smaller explosions sprayed a potpourri of dirt and rocks high into the air.

Papa Steve was either going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do, or he was planning on going AWOL before the commander returned.

“I said stop!” the guard shouted.

A burst of machine gun fire followed. Bullets slapped at the ground by Lou’s feet. Frantically, he searched for cover, but Cap had other ideas. He rolled over once and then again. The second time, he had the pistol in his hand. One shot, and the soldier cried out, dropped his gun, and fell, clutching his shoulder.

“Nice shot!” Lou exclaimed.

“Nice shot, hell! I was aiming at his leg.”

“Get to the truck!” Papa Steve was hollering.

Pistol drawn, he was providing them with what seemed like random cover fire. Small explosions continued to erupt throughout the woods. Assuming chaos and fear were Papa Steve’s goals, he was the Picasso of demolition. Lou and Cap were moving again, hunched over, weaving across the courtyard. More guards had materialized near the wounded soldier. Bullets whizzed past Lou’s head as he angled for the truck. If he tripped now, he’d be dead. Just like that, dead.

The situation was surreal. He was on a military base in rural West Virginia, weaponless, locked in a goddamn firefight with highly trained soldiers who were pathologically prepared to die to protect their world. Back in Arlington, Emily was probably in her room, listening to music, getting ready for bed, totally unaware of the horror that was evolving three hours or so to the west. Another bullet struck the ground close by. Lou fought the urge to drop and roll. There was no cover, and he would be shot before he could take another breath. Cap was firing over his shoulder as he ran, the knapsack and its precious contents at times bouncing off the ground. Papa Steve continued to fire, but each series was quickly answered by a return volley.

As Lou reached the truck, he heard the distinct snap of bullets against metal. Next there was the thud of bullets against rubber, followed by a loud hiss of air. The left rear tire instantly deflated. Moments later, the right was flat as well.

A final burst of speed and Lou reached the passenger door with Cap on his heels. They scrambled inside while Papa Steve fired one last burst and dived behind the wheel. As torturous as their situation was, he seemed exhilarated—a cowboy mounting a two-thousand-pound bucking bull.

“You got the gun?” he asked as they lurched ahead.

Breathing heavily, Lou nodded. “How’re we gonna get out of here with two flat tires?”

Papa Steve, his tan knuckles white from gripping the wheel, glanced over at him. “I thought you were the one with the blond bombshell contingency plan.”

“Let’s get to the guardhouse. I’ll make the call on the way. Can you get any speed from this thing?”

“As long as it doesn’t realize it has two flat tires.”

Lou had Judy Lemon’s phone number on speed dial. The “1812” was over now, and the smoke from the fireworks was drifting away. Papa Steve’s explosions, too, were on the wane. Bewildered soldiers were emerging from the woods, weapons ready, trying to determine what had happened and whom to shoot.

The truck roared ahead, sending up rooster tails of dirt and dust, seeming as if it were stripping a gear every few feet.

“Dr. Lou? Is that you?” The voice of Judy Lemon, barely audible, crackled in Lou’s ear. Sporadic gunfire had resumed, and several bullets hit the truck.

“Judy, can you hear me?” Lou had no idea if she answered. “Judy!” Lou shouted. “Meet us at the gate! At the gate!”

The truck was slowing down, its engine screeching.

“Not far now!” Papa Steve yelled. “We may have to run.”

Up ahead, Lou caught sight of the end of the road and the guardhouse. The truck was about to breathe its last. Steve pushed a button on his detonator, and to their right, twenty feet or so from Cap, an explosion disintegrated a jeep, sending up smoke, flame and noise.

“Jesus!” Cap cried out, ducking from the blast.

“I had forgotten about that one until I saw the jeep,” Papa Steve said, laughing as dirt and stones rained down on the roof. “Truck’s dead. Guns out! We’ve got to run for the gate. Lou, where’s that backup?”

As if on cue, up ahead, blue and red strobes appeared. With Papa Steve’s handiwork disrupting the night, the front gate to the Mantis base was unguarded.

After a brief sprint, during which Papa Steve easily kept pace, Cap opened the gate to let Lemon’s cruiser inside.

The driver’s-side window opened, and Lemon leaned out. Her hair had been tucked under her trooper’s hat, but Lou noticed that she had probably painted on another layer of makeup. “Hey, boys. Need a lift?”

The three clambered inside the cruiser just as a small nearby shed exploded.

“I know, I know,” Lou said. “You forgot about that one.”

“Which of you guys got the fireworks permit?” Lemon asked.

“That would be me,” Papa Steve said.

“Operation Talon,” Lou said, breathing hard. “We’ve got to stop it.”

“Why?” Papa Steve asked. “We’ve got the murder weapon. Let’s use it to get Brody.”

“Talon is a suicide mission. Twenty guys are coming back in body bags unless we do something to prevent it.”

“Did you hear where they’re going?” Papa Steve asked.

“Dover Air Force Base. They were going to take off from Langley, but they changed their plans. I don’t know where their ultimate destination is, but I got the sense from what I heard that it’s more than one place.”

Papa Steve hesitated. The muscles in his face went taut, and he seemed to be having difficulty assimilating the new information.

“What’s the deal, boss?” Cap asked impatiently. “We’ve been lucky so far. I don’t think we should be hanging here too much longer.”

Finally, Papa Steve shrugged and pointed to a narrow dirt road in front of them. “That’s the road to the heliport. Officer Judy, would you mind taking us there?”

“Brody’s gone,” Lou said. “What good’s that going to do?”

“Trust me,” Papa Steve said.

“Okay, then. Judy, go for it!”

The cruiser rocketed forward, fishtailing twice before being expertly brought in line. A minute later, they were at the heliport. A guard, possibly alerted by radio, stepped out from behind a utility shed and trained his rifle on the cruiser car.

“Down!” Lemon shouted.

The four of them ducked as a bullet struck the front windshield dead center and exited out the back, leaving perfect spiderwebs in the glass. Driving like a NASCAR champion, Lemon hit the brake and skidded into a smoke-and-rubber-filled 360. Then, before the cruiser had fully stopped, she rolled out the door, rising to her feet with lightning quickness, her pistol trained on the center of the Mantis guard’s chest.

“Drop that weapon, soldier,” she said. “That’s an order.”

Papa Steve climbed out of the car. “Do as she says, son. We got no beef with you.”

The standoff was short lived. The baby-faced soldier lowered his weapon, and within moments Lemon had his wrists handcuffed behind his back, and he had shown the three men lockers containing radio helmets for each of them.

“I don’t get it,” Lou said. “What are we doing here? We’ve got to stop Brody.”

Papa Steve gestured toward a weathered army helicopter, one of two remaining on the helipad. “Gentlemen,” he said. “If we want to stop Wyatt Brody, then we’re going to need to go for a little ride. Follow me, and I’ll teach you boys how to hot-wire a chopper.”

CHAPTER 44

Sarah could never bring herself to sell the town house she and David bought ten years before. Beckman Place was one of only a handful of gated communities within the D.C. city limits. Situated on a hill with majestic views over Sixteenth Street and Florida Avenue, Beckman Place sat on a piece of land that once housed a castle built for Senator John Henderson, coauthor of the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery. David fell in love with the location’s history enough to ignore the strain the 1,500-square-foot property put on their limited budget. Now, the stone entrance gateposts were all that remained of Henderson Castle, and memories were all that Sarah had of David.

After spending the day with Edith, Sarah had grown even fonder of the remarkable woman she had come to regard as a friend. Edith had not visited Washington since before the so-called accident that blinded her, but she navigated the streets almost like a woman with sight. Once, on their way to Devlin and Rodgers to make copies of the Reddy Creek invoices for safekeeping, Edith used her cane to keep Sarah from crossing a street in front of oncoming traffic.

“Open your ears,” she had said with a smile.

When they arrived at Sarah’s office, there was a surprise waiting for them. Bruce Patterson, Edith’s former boss at the
Raleigh News & Observer,
had sent a FedEx box containing all the files, notes, and, research Edith had compiled during her Reddy Creek investigation. She and Sarah spent the remainder of the afternoon locked away in Sarah’s office, going through the material with the meticulousness of archeologists at a dig site.

It was late afternoon, and Hogarth still had not called to accept Sarah’s offer.

“Are you going to go public?” Edith asked.

“We can’t back off,” Sarah said. “He made his choice. Besides, thanks to you, we have a wealth of evidence here, even without Hogarth’s cooperation, to establish a very strong motive for Brody to commit murder. I’m confident a jury will have more than enough reasonable doubt to acquit McHugh, if the prosecutors go to trial at all.”

The two women returned to Beckman Place by Metro with only hours to go before Hogarth’s deadline expired. Sarah waved her electronic key in front of the card reader. Automatic gates rolled open on well-oiled wheels. The guard seated inside a tollbooth-sized stone guardhouse did not break away from his TV set as Sarah and Edith strolled past. Sarah even waved and said hello, but the distracted man ignored her. Even with the windows in the guardhouse closed, Sarah could tell he was watching some sort of sporting event.