Under Siege (62 page)

Henry Charon had no doubt they were waiting for soldiers to arrive. He went down the stairs and paused in the kitchen. The refrigerator. Pretty empty. Nothing but a loaf of bread and a half pack of baloney. The owners must be gone for the holidays. He stuffed the loaf in his pocket and wolfed down the baloney. The blood loss had made him ravenous. And food would help his body manufacture new blood cells.

He went into the front room and stood peeking through a crack in the drapes as he chewed and swallowed bread. He explored the bandage with his right hand. It wasn’t sodden

yet, but it would be after a while. He had extra sbatwips in the duffle bag.

Time to go.

Out in the backyard with the door pressed shut, he walked down the concrete walk to the swimming pool, which was covered for the winter. He was going to have to cross the grass.

He did so. The back fence was six feet high. He threw his bags over, then jumped and hooked a heel over the top. The pain in his side almost made him fall off. He struggled, then fell over the other side.

It was several seconds before he could move. It was so pleasant lying here on the soft ground, with the rain falling gently on his face. If he could just rest, sleep maybe, let this pain subside …

He struggled upright and got the bags positioned on his shoulders just as a dog in the nearby house began to yap.

He trotted past the left side of the house and got out on the street and kept going in a long, easy, ground-covering lope.

“What’s that noise?”

“Dog barking somewhere,” Toad said. He still had perfect hearing, much better than Grafton’s.

“You stay here. Get the troops spread around, maybe out ten blocks if you have enough men.”

Jake went down along the house they were in front of, trying to figure out where that dog was that was barking.

The backyard had a pool. He walked through the grass, looking for tracks with his flashlight. His boots sank into the soft earth. He went on toward the fence. That barking dog seemed to be across it and down a house.

He saw the tracks in the wet . Galvanized, Jake slung the n o n his back and swung up. It occurred to him as he went over that he could have just made a fatal mistake. The shot never came. He stood on the other side of the fence breathing hard, trying to listen. The dents in the grass went alongside the house.

Following, he stopped at the edge of the street and listened intently. He heard the faint sound of a man running, his boots hitting the pavement.

Jake Grafton ran in that direction. He was buffing badly, overheating it-from too many clothes. And he was sadly out of shape.

The street turned ninety degrees right in a wide sweeping turn. On both sides of the street were houses set well back from the pavement and partially obscured by yards full of huge bushes and evergreens.

As he rounded the curve Jake saw the man ahead. And the man ahead glanced back over his shoulder and saw him. Jake tried to run faster. The man ahead broke like a sprinter. And he’s got a bullet in him.

He was going to have to shoot. No question. He would never catch him. As he ran he flipped the saandty off and thumbed the selector to full automatic. The distance between them was growing.

The man ahead was coming to a streetlight. Now!

Jake stopped and flopped down on his belly in the street. Too late he realized a gentle crown in the road obscured the lower half of the fleeing man’s body.

Panting desperately, Jake aligned the sights as best he could. He squeezed the trigger and held it down as he fought to hold the weapon on target.

He let the entire clip go in one long, thunderous three second burst.

Half blinded from the muzzle blasts, he rose into a crouch and stared, blinking his eyes desperately, trying to see.

The man he had been chasing was gone. Disappointed beyond words, Jake sank into a sitting position in the middle of the street and tried to catch his breath. Oh God! Fortyfive years old and tied to a desk. He still couldn’t get enough air. His heart was thudding like he was going to die.

Three minutes later an army truck rounded the curve with a roar and squealed to a stop beside him. The sergeant on

the running board leaped down and covered him with the M-1 6 while two men piled out of the rear of the truck and faced away with their weapons at the ready.

“Drop it.”

Jake let the rifle fall. “I’m Captain Graft-was

“On your face, Jack, spread-eagle, or I’ll cut you clean in half.”

He obeyed. Wearing khaki trousers and a green coat, he sure didn’t look like a soldier. Rough hands searched him and found his wallet, which they extracted.

“Sorry, sir. You may stand up now.”

Jake rolled over and accepted an offered hand. When he was standing he asked, “You guys with Bravo Company, Second Battalion?”

“No, sir. Charlie, First Battalion. Sorry about-was

“Forget it. Let me use your radio.”

Bravo Company was still assembling in Rock Creek Park. It would take another ten minutes or so, Rita estimated. She told him that the troops had removed all the equipment from the cave.

“Take it to the FBI. Special Agent Hooper.”

Jake deployed the Charlie Company soldiers in the truck and searched the neighborhood where the fugitive had disappeared. Nothing. The man was gone.

At one a.m. Yocke came by with Toad and Rita, and Jake climbed into the car. He was exhausted.

Jake Grafton picked up Toad Tarkington at eight the next oming. They then drove over to the Post building to get Jack Yocke. He was wearing the same clothes he had had on last night. “You sleeping up there?” Toad asked. “You know how it is in the big city. Public transportation is the pits and if you drive you have to fight all the traffic.”

“Want to borrow a toothbrush?”

“Thanks anyway. A guy in the newsroom had one and we all shared. You won’t believe who is up there right now talking to Ott Mergenthaler.” Without pausing, Yocke added, “Sam Strader.” I That piece of news didn’t seem to impress the two naval officers.

“And the powers that be have been on the phone more or less continuously with the White House. They want passes for our delivery trucks. Without them we can’t publish.”

Jake grunted. He was thinking about a cup of coffee, wishing he had one. None of the fast-food outlets or corner delis were open; their people couldn’t get to work. Banning cars had shut this town down.

“The thing that has our guys going is that the authorities gave the TV people passes for their camera trucks.”

“Each station got passes for two trucks,” Jake said. “The Post and the Times have hundreds of trucks.”

“Hey, I’m not arguing the case. I’m just filling you in on the news. That’s my bag.” The silence that followed was broken when Yocke asked J”

“How about a clarification of the ground rules between

you and me. I agreed not to publish until “this is over.‘When will that be?”

“When all the troops leave and the civil government takes charge.”

“My editor wanted to know. I left him with the impression I’m getting red-hot sizzling stuff.”

“Are you?”

“Wpjl, at least it’s warm.”

“Body temperature?”

“Not quite that warm. Tepid might be the word.”

“What can we do,” Jake asked Toad, “to give this intrepid lad some sizzle?”

“Let’s think about that. I could tell you what Rita told me last night when I asked for some sizzle, but I doubt if it would help.”

“Probably not.”

Yocke was busy explaining what he meant by sizzle when the windshield popped audibly in front of the driver’s seat and a neat hole surrounded by concentric lines appeared instantly, as if by magic. Automatically Toad slammed on the brake. “Floor it,” Grafton said. “Let’s get outta here.”

Tarkington jammed the accelerator down. The next bullet missed the passenger compartment and penetrated the sheet metal somewhere with an audible thud. The report followed a second later.

Toad swerved and kept going. The first corner he came to he went around with tires squealing. “Anyone hurt?”

“Not me,” Grafton said and got busy brushing the tiny pieces of glass off the front seat. “You can slow down now.”

“Someone’s unhappy,” Yocke said. “There’s a lot of that these days.” “That asshole could have killed one of us,” Toad groused. “I think that was the idea,” Yocke said dryly.

Toad Tarkington raised his lip in a snarl. Yocke was still insufferable.

At the armory Jake spent a half hour in the command center. Random shootings were occurring in at least a half

dozen locations in the city. Troops were being directed to the affected areas to find the snipers.

“We got over a hundred druggies back there locked up and more coming in all the time,” Major General Greer said. “If it’s just withdrawal or possession, I’m shipping them down to Fort Mcationair. We’re putting them in the gymnasium there until somebody figures out what to do with them. But the people with weapons, the people that are actively resisting our guys or carrying significant quantities of drugs, I’m keeping them here. We have to separate the wheat from the chaff some way.”

“They’re still carrying guns?” Jake asked.

“Oh yes. Apparently they’re fighting each other and the soldiers. Just two hours ago we had a raging gun battle in the northeast section. Seven civilians dead and wounded by the time the soldiers got there. They were using automatic weapons.”

“Any word on the terrorists?”

” ,“Still looking. But even if we find them, my recommendation to General Land will be that we maintain martial law until this random shooting and gang warfare stops. We can’t just walk out now and leave this mess to the cops.”

Jake went back to the office General Greer had made available and got on the phone.

“I have something I want to tell you,” Jack Yocke told Jake a half hour later when he and Tarkington finally got off the telephones.

Something about Yocke’s tone caused Jake Grafton to raise his eyebrows. Toad caught it too. “You want me to leave?” he asked the reporter.

“No. Maybe you both ought to hear this. Youll know what to do with it. Needless to say, it’s not for public consumption.”

“Off the record?” Toad asked, horrified.

Yocke’s lips twisted and he nodded.

Toad tiptoed to the door, opened it and peeked out, then closed it and wedged a chairback under the knob. “Okay” fire away. But remember, even the walls have ears.”

“How do you stand him?” Yocke asked Grafton.

The captain rested his chin in his hand and sighed audibly. “Three or four weeks ago they had a revolution down in Cuba.”

“We heard about that,” Toad said.

“I figured I’d avoid the mob of reporters and travel down there in a slightly unconventional way, a way that would generate a story. So I went to Miami and walked in on a group of Cuban exiles that might be planning on going back. I promised them I wouldn’t do any stories on how I got to Cuba. They weren’t too thrilled about having me but they took me with them to Cuba. As I said, I promised not to publish anything about them. But I didn’t promise not to tell the U.s. government.”

“Okay.” Jake nodded.

“At Andros Island in the Bahamas they loaded about three-dozen wire-guided antitank missiles aboard. That’s where they said we were, anyway.”

“Maybe you’d better tell us the whole story,” Jake said, and pulled around a pad to take notes.

Yocke did. His recitation took fifteen minutes. When he was finished, both officers had questions to clear up minor points.

Finally, when everything seemed to have been covered, Jake asked, “Why are you telling us this?” Yocke just looked at him. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“You tell me.”

“I think the U.s. government ought to look into where those antitank missiles came from. Maybe they were stolen from a government warehouse. Maybe-oh, I don’t know. I’ll bet they were stolen.”

“Why didn’t you go to the FBI?”

“Because I’m a reporter. If it gets around that I tell tales to the FBI, I’m finished. People won’t talk to me.”

“Why now?”

Yocke twisted. “I wasn’t going to tell. But I know you fellows and now seemed like a good time.”

“You could have been killed down in Miami,” Toad pointed out. “Well, I’m still alive.”

“I’m trying to figure out why that is,” Jake told him leaned back in his chair and pulled out a lower desk to rest his feet upon. “Why are you still among the living?”

“I told you what they told me.”

“Hmmm. You think that was the real reason?”

“It sounded real good to me at the time.”

“How does it sound now?”

Yocke cleared his throat and rubbed his lips as he considered the question. “It doesn’t really hold water. Why should they trust me when a bullet would have solved their problem? They could have just dumped me out in the Gulf Stream. Nobody would have ever known and that would have been that. I don’t know why they didn’t, and I don’t think the people in Cuba are going to give me any answer except the one they gave me then.”

“Surely you’ve got a theory or twot’

“Well, yes. This business about General Zaba got me thinking. You know, it’s easy to assume that our government is made up of a bunch of boobs who never know what’s going on and screw up anything positive they try to do.”

Jbbike’s eyebrows rose a millimeter and fell.

“I’ve come to believe that most of the time you guys do your job right. It occurred to me that possibly one of the reasons General Zaba is in the U.s. to testify against Chano Aldana is because the U.s. government helped the rebels overthrow Castro.”

“Interesting,” Jake Grafton said.

“I think the reason I’m still alive is because the Cubans were CIA or knew that the CIA would not be pleased if American citizens got murdered.”

Jake shrugged. “It’s possible. But you haven’t brought this up expecting me to find some answers, have you?” Jake asked.

“No. Just being a good citizen. I’m telling you on the off chance the U.s. government lost some antitank missiles and wants to find out where they went.” Jake . Grafton laced his fingers behind his head. “Rest