Under Siege (8 page)

After checking the area with his flashlight, Henry Charon squirmed through the gaping crack, which was lined with stones at odd angles. He was now in a room with a dirt floor and walls of old brick. The ceiling was a concrete slab. Above that, Charon had concluded after an afternoon of discreet pacing, was dirt and an asphalt basketball court.

This basement was at least a century old. The house which had stood above it had apparently been demolished thirty or forty years ago during a spasm of enthusiasm for urban renewal. The ceiling slab had not been poured here, the edges were not mated to the brick walls in any way. No doubt the demolition contractor had thought it cheaper to just cover the hole rather than pay to haul in dirt to fill it.

There was no way out of this room except through the subway tunnel. That was the bad news. The good news was that the subway tunnel was the only entrance. A man would be reasonably safe here for a short while if he could get in without being observed.

Air entered this subterranean vault fi-from several cracks in the brick walls and around the large stones that choked the opening through which coal had once probably been dumped into the basement. Charon suspected that nearby

other basements, other century-old ruins of nineWashington, and the dark air passages were by mts to go back and forth, He checked the supplies he had brought here on two evenings last week, on his last trip to Washington. Canned food, a stemo stove, a first-aid kit, two gallons of water, three blankets, and two flashlights with extra D-cell batteries. It was all here, apparently undisturbed. He examined one of the blankets more carefully with his flashlight. A rat had apparently decided it would make a good nest. He shook out the blanket and refolded it.

He picked up a handful of dirt from the floor and sifted it through his fingers. It was dry, the consistency of dust. That was good. This would not be a safe place to be if water in any quantity ever came in.

Charon turned off the flashlight and sat in the darkness near the exit hole, listening. The sounds of traffic on the street twenty to thirty feet over his head were always there. Faint but audible. There was another sound too, of such low frequency as almost to be felt rather than heard. He eased his head out into the tunnel for a look, then crawled out. Now he heard it, a faint rumble. It seemed to be coming down the tunnel.

Standing in the subway tunnel he reinspected the hole with the flash. He wanted to leave no obvious evidence that anyone had been in there. Satisfied, he walked south as the rumbling noise faded again to silence. Not total silence, of course. He could still hear the street sounds from the world above.

If Tasson just wanted George Bush assassinated, that would be a large enough challenge to satisfy anyone, Henry Charon mused as he walked along. Make the hit, ride out the manhunt that would immediately follow, then leave Washington several weeks later for the ranch. Sit at the ranch for several years enduring the agony of waiting for the FBI to come driving up the road, and hoping they never came.

But Bush was merely the first name on the list. The other five, they would have to be killed after the presidential hit.

That was the rub. The sequence was dictated by logic. If he first shot the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or the attorney general, the Secret Service would surround Bush with a security curtain that one man could not hope to penetrate. So Bush had to be the first target. That sequence inevitably created an escape problem of extraordinary complexity. He had to move in spite of the dragnet and find his targets. And escape without revealing his identity. Again and again.

Could it be done? Could he do it?

He glimpsed light ahead and doused the flashlight. TW-O hundred yards of careful walking brought him to a steel mesh. Here the new tunnel joined an existing one. He stood in the darkness and waited.

Yes. Here comes the rumble again, much louder, swelling and growing, rushing toward him.

He stood watching as a subway train rushed by with a roar, the passengers plainly visible in the windows, standing tilde , sitting, reading, talking to each other. And as fast as the train had come, it was gone, the sound radioand

Henry Charon extracted a subway map from his hip pocket and consulted it in the dim glow of the flashlight. He traced the lines and looked again at the layout of the system, committing the routes to memory. The avenues and streets and subway lines, they had to be as familiar to him as the ridges and mesas of the Sangre de Cristos.

With the map back in his pocket, he examined the steel fence carefully and the padlocked mesh door in the middle of it. He could cut that lock if he had to. A Yale. He would buy one just like it, just in case.

It felt strange here in this tunnel, walking through the darkness with just the glow of the flashlight and the smell of earth in his nostrils. In fifteen minutes he arrived at the cavern that would someday be a subway station and picked his way around and through the scaffolding. He found the opening to the outside world, kicked the plywood off, then reset it. It was chilly on the street After buttoning his coat, Henry walked along absorbing the sights and sounds, and examining the terrain yet again, Before committing everything to memory.

Could it be done? Could he do it?

Even if he pulled it off, did everything absolutely right and fate had no nasty little surprises for him-like a cop at an unexpected place or a tourist snapping pictures at the wrong time-Tasson and his unknown masters were still the weak links.

Who did Tasson work for? How many people in Tassone’s organization knew of the New Mexico hitter, Tassone’s trips, the cash in the suitcases? were any of these people government informers? Would they become so in the future? were any of them alcoholics or drug addicts? Would someone whisper to a mistress, brag at a bar?

All who knew the identity of the assassin of the President of the United States were serious threats for as long as they lived. They would always carry this immense, valuable secret. If they were ever arrested or threatened ” the immense, valuable secret could always be sold or traded.

The project tempted Henry Charon. The preparations, the anticipation that would grow and grow, the kill, the chase afterward, just thinking of these things made him feel vigorously alive, like the first glimpse of a bull elk against a far ridge on a clear, frosty morning. Yet the unknown, faceless ones could ruin him at any time. If he successfully escaped he would have to live with the possibility of betrayal all the rest of his life.

Yet you had to weigh everything, and the hunt was what really mattered.

Henry Charon walked on, thinking again of the hunt and how it would be.

On Sunday, T. Jefferson Brody woke up comalone in his king-sized bed in his five-bedroom, four-bathroom, $1.6 million mansion in Kenwood. After a long hot shower, he shaved and dressed in gray wool slacks and a tweed sports coat that had set him back half a grand.

Ten minutes later he eased the Mercedes from the threecar garage and thumbed the garage-door controller as he backed down the drive.

T. Jefferson Brody should have felt good this morning. Friday he had deposited another fat legal fee in his Washington bank and shuffled another equally fat fee off to the Netherlands Antilles on the first leg of an electronic journey to Switzerland. He had done some calculations on an envelope last night, then burned the envelope. The sums he had managed to squirrel away were significant in any man’s league: he had over four million dollars in cash here in the States on which he had paid income taxes and six million in Switzerland on which he hadn’t. That plus the house (half paid for) and the cars, antiques, and art (cash on the barrelhead) gave him a nice, tidy little fortune. T. Jefferson was doing all right for himself. The fly in the wine of T. Jefferson Brody was that he wanted a lot more. He knew there was a lot more to be made, a whale of a lot more, and it just didn’t seem that he was getting a share commensurate with his contribution. The things he did-the things only he could do-enabled his clients to make mountains of money, yet he was left with the crumbs that dribbled from their napkins. Just fees. Never a percentage of the action. Of course, lawyers traditionally have received fees for their services, but T. Jefferson

Brody’s services weren’t traditional.

As he drove down Massachusetts Avenue into the District this morning for breakfast with the representative of his oldest, though certainly not richest, client, T. Jefferson tried to decide if he should announce a fee increase or something equally nebulous that would put more money into his pocket. He would wait, he decided, to hear what the client wanted.

These people were going to have to realize that T. Jefferson Brody was a very valuable asset to have in their huddle. T. Jefferson delivered. Always. Money talks. and bullshit walks. Somehow he would have to make that point. Professionally and unobtrusively, of course.

He checked his car with the valet at the Hay Adams Hotel and walked purposefully through the lobby to the elevator.

Whenever Bernie Shapiro came to town he always stayed in the same suite, a huge corner job with an excellent view of Lafayette Park and the White House.

Bernie opened the door, grunted once, and closed it behind the visitor. “When’s it gonna get cold down here?”

“Weird weather,” T. Jefferson agreed as he took off his topcoat and laid it on a handy chair. “Maybe the climate is really getting warmer.”

“Like hell. Nearly froze my ass off in New York these past two weeks.”

Bernie Shapiro was a bear of a man. He had been fearsome in his youth; now he was merely fat. The years, however, had added no padding to his abrasive personality.

He sank into an easy chair and relit the stump of cigar that protruded from his fleshy jowls. “Breakfast’ll be here in a few minutes,” he muttered as he eyed his visitor through the thick smoke.

The attorney found a chair and took in the luxurious room and the White House, just visible from this angle through the naked tree branches.

Classical music played on the radio beside the bed a tad too loud for comfortable conversation. This was a normal precaution. The music would vibrate the window glass and foil any parabolic mikes that might be pointed in this direction by inquisitive souls, such as FBI agents.

The men discussed the Giants” and Redskins’chances this year as they waited for breakfast to be delivered. The knock of the room-service waiter came precisely on the hour. After all, this was the Hay Adams.

When the white-jacketed waiter had wheeled the serving cart back into the hall and closed the door behind him, Bernie opened his briefcase and extracted a device artfully crafted to look like a portable radio. This device detected the electromagnetic field created by microphones. Bernie pulled out the antenna, then walked around the room, paying careful attention to the needle on the dial as he paused at light switches and electrical outlets, swept the antenna over the food and slowly down Brody’s back and front. The operation took about two minutes. Finally satisfied, Bernie nodded toward the conference table laden with food as he collapsed the antenna and flipped switches.

The lawyer seated himself and poured a cup of coffee while Bernie put the device back in his briefcase. Only when both men were seated and had their food on their plates did the serious conversation begin. -, “We’ve decided to expand our business. What with everybody making acquisitions and expanding their profit potential, it seemed like the thing to do.”

“Absolutely,” T. Jefferson agreed as he forked into the eggs benedict.

“We thought we would get into the checkcashing business at several likely places around the country. We’ve located a little business here in Washington and want you to buy it for us. You’ll do all the negotiating, set up some corporations, front the whole deal.”

“Same as the DePaolo deal?”

“Pretty much.”

“What’s the name of the company you want to buy?”

“A to Z Checks. The owner ran into some trouble Friday evening and the business now belongs to his widow. I want you to make her an offer. Better wait until Tuesday. The funeral’s tomorrow. The business is ten outlets. We’ll pay a flat four hundred thousand, but if you can get it for less you keep the difference.”

“Okay.”

Bernie got to work on his sausage as T. Jefferson Brody turned the project over in his mind and decided it offered few problems. A couple of dummy corporations and some negotiating. Assignments of the leases on the outletshe knew from experience that these storefront operations were always leased-and the usual business papers. All very straightforward. “If the widow won’t take our offer, you let me know.” “What’s the business make in profit?”

“About a hundred grand a year.”

“Your offer sounds reasonable. But if you don’t mind my asking, why do you want this business?”

“That’s the second half of the project. The crack business here in Washington is turning some hefty dollars. Six organizations here in the area have all the trade. Anyone else tries to get started, they shut them down. These organizations are all getting along and turning decent money, with the usual friction at street level for turf.” Bernie waved that away as a problem not worthy of discussion. “The real problem is washing the dough after they got it. That’s the service we’ll provide. We’ll take the cash and trade it for government checks-welfare, ADC, Social Security, and so on-and the usual private checks, deposit the checks in a business account, then run the money through dummy corporations which will feed it to legit businesses owned by us. Other real businesses with absolutely no connection to the first set will feed money back to our crack friends. They’ll get a nice legit income from a corporation they own and nobody can ever prove a thing. I think they’ll really like this operation when it’s explained to them. We won’t need you for that though.”

“What will you charge for this service?”

“TW-ENTY percent was Bernie grinned.

Brody felt his eallyebrOwSo struggling to rise. He made an effort to control his face.