Terror in D.C. Page 5

  As Isfahan sat on the couch, he decided that an unexpected change of orders might demonstrate to the entire room that he was still in charge.

  “Yes, Mosul,” he began easily, “we are all very proud of your great deeds. With each successful mission, the world is once again reminded of our holy cause.”

  “And tonight we will remind the world again!” Mosul put in, smiling.

  “Yes, that is so. But I have made a decision. You have become very valuable to our work. Your worth to me as a trusted aide is beyond measure. Who else knows more about the bombing procedures than you?”

  “I have tried my best,” Mosul said warily, wondering what the older man was getting at.

  “Without question, dear Mosul. But it is for that very reason that, tonight, I am replacing your team with another team. A new group of warriors—”

  “But why, oh, Father? Have we failed in some way?”

  “Have I said so? Of course you have not failed. But it is my wish that your other brothers have an opportunity to take their revenge on the American pigs. They, too, must have a chance to familiarize themselves with the procedures. Most of them rarely get the chance to even leave the confines of my estate. Let us think of them!”

  Mosul’s protestations were quickly smothered by the noise of the other men pleading with Isfahan for a chance to lead that night’s bombing mission.

  Outwardly, Mosul appeared to be pleased by Isfahan’s choice. He cheered for the five men picked to go in place of his team. He offered advice and helped lead them through the procedure. He told them how to choose a home—if they did not already have one in mind. He told them the best place to plant the bombs, how to set the timers, and the best method of escaping in their vehicle, which, tonight, would be the laundry truck. He told them how they must be sure to carry nothing that could possibly be used to identify them, and how it was important to fight to the death in the event they were caught.

  He let no one in the embassy see how disappointed he was, but all the way back to the dormitory he sulked. Zanjen and Karaj pretended not to notice, but they, too, felt betrayed by Isfahan. They separated wordlessly and went to their rooms.

  Later, much later, Mosul got up silently from his bed, dressed, and took a loaded .38 Smith & Wesson from beneath the bureau where he kept it taped. He had purchased the weapon from a Negro on the street, and he was quite sure it was stolen.

  The moon was half full, quite bright, and there was plenty of light on the night streets of Washington.

  Walking with his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, he came upon three potential victims, all men, all alone.

  But each time, just before he drew the gun, Mosul lost his nerve. They were men—what if he only wounded them? If he did not kill them with the first shot, they might beat him or, worse, they might be carrying guns themselves.

  Mosul decided it was too dangerous to attack grown men—even with a revolver.

  Finally, he passed a young woman on a dark street. She was wearing a dress and a bright corsage beneath her sweater. Perhaps she was a college girl walking home after a fight with her date.

  Mosul stopped. “Excuse me,” he said, exaggerating his difficulty with English, “could you please be telling me which direction it is in to go to the Lincoln Memorial?”

  The girl stopped. “What?”

  Mosul repeated what he had said.

  The girl smiled. “Oh, you’re from another country, aren’t you? I can tell by your accent.” She took several steps toward him. “Yes, the Lincoln Memorial is about ten blocks from here. You turn left at the—”

  She stopped talking when she saw the gun. Her voice became very small. “What … what are you doing? What do you want from me?”

  Mosul did not answer.

  He smiled, and the girl relaxed a little. Perhaps the young man was just joking.

  He wasn’t. Mosul aimed the gun and shot her once in the face. The girl moaned in agony when she hit the cement.

  Then he stood over her, held the gun to her head, and pulled the trigger twice.

  The girl’s legs kicked violently, then she lay still.

  Mosul Aski wiped the barrel of the gun on her dress, put the gun in his pocket, then walked calmly back to the dormitory.

  He had been angry about being removed from the bombing team. Now he felt much better.…

  eight

  James Hawker was tired. The dead Syrian, Rultan, had not been very specific.

  He had said the suburb of Wells Church would be a bad place for someone from the Mideast to be found on Friday.

  Rultan had not been allowed to finish his sentence. He had not told Hawker when on Friday.

  Death had cut him short.

  Hawker could only assume that the terrorists would strike during darkness.

  But there is a lot of darkness on both sides of a day.

  After leaving the Eastern Chalice Restaurant, Hawker had stopped at his apartment, showered, changed clothes, and picked up a few select pieces of weaponry. Then he drove to Wells Church. Wells Church was just west of D.C., a suburb of Colonial houses, ivy walls, and historical markers.

  Hawker stopped at the telephone company. He told the girl at the counter he had just moved into town. She gave him a telephone book, a local business directory, and a street map.

  Using the map, Hawker drove around the streets of the suburb, familiarizing himself with the area.

  Then he ate dinner (lamb chops, new potatoes, salad, and iced tea) at a Colonial-style restaurant where George Washington never slept.

  Finally, just before sunset, Hawker leafed through the business directory and found two places where they sold telescopes. The first place didn’t have one that looked quite impressive enough.

  Hawker found just what he wanted at the second place, a camera/optics shop run by a Hasidic Jew named Olaf.

  It would have taken a nice little bite out of the money in the envelope, so Hawker used a credit card. It was necessary. To be a good disguise the telescope had to be convincing. The one he bought was a six-inch reflector with a Newtonian optical system, a fork mount, and a clock drive. The telescope stood about four feet high, with a gray tripod and a red barrel.

  Then he telephoned the only number Lester Rehfuss had given him. A woman answered.

  “High Tech Diversified. Can I help you?”

  Despite the greeting, Hawker knew he was not talking to an electronics firm.

  He was talking to a Stage One operator at the CIA’s traffic headquarters.

  Hawker replied as he had been instructed. “Yes, this is Mr. James. I think you were expecting a call from me?”

  “Can you hold on for a minute, Mr. James?”

  The phone clicked, and Hawker knew the operator would first check with the computer to make sure he was on the phone list. Then she would test the connection for any hint of electrical resistance, making sure there was no phone tap on his line.

  Finally, she returned. “Yes, Mr. James, we were expecting a call from you. Is your business going satisfactorily?”

  “It’s going pretty well. But I need to get a message to Mr. Lester. It’s important. I want you to tell him that I had nothing to do with eliminating that problem at the restaurant this afternoon. I don’t want to claim credit for something I didn’t do.”

  “Very commendable, Mr. James. Is there anything else?”

  “Yeah. Tell him I’m not sure who did it.”

  “I’ll pass your message along, Mr. James.”

  “Oh, and one more thing. Tell him those foreign visitors we’re expecting are supposed to be in Wells Church sometime after midnight tonight, or Friday night. I’m not sure when. I’d like to meet them personally, but it’s my night off and I’ll be out with my new telescope. You know what an astronomy buff I am.”

  “Your new telescope?”

  “That’s exactly right. It’s a real beauty and I can’t wait to try it. I’ll be in Wells Church doing some stargazing, so I think Mr. Lester ought to get his best pe
ople to meet the foreign visitors. I’d do it myself, but I hate to be bothered when I’m tracking.”

  “Tracking?”

  “Asteroids. There’s a minor shower expected near Arcturus. You might tell Mr. Lester about my new telescope. He’ll like it—it’s red.”

  “Red? How nice. I will pass your message along the moment he comes in, Mr. James. Happy stargazing.”

  When Hawker hung up the phone, he carried the telescope back to his rental car.

  Chances were that the terrorists wouldn’t hit until the next night, Friday night. But Hawker knew there was an outside possibility they might strike early Friday morning, between midnight and dawn.

  Enough innocent people around D.C. had been murdered by these lunatics. That’s exactly why Hawker had told the CIA traffic operator that Lester Rehfuss should have his men out in force. Wells Church wasn’t a big suburb, but it was big enough, and Hawker wasn’t about to take the chance of missing the bombers.

  One man alone couldn’t watch all the streets in the area.

  Hawker tried to put himself in the place of the terrorists. Before they selected a house and planted their bombs, they would certainly drive around the area first to make sure the place wasn’t crawling with cops.

  It didn’t take him long to find a centralized area that would be a likely place to pick up the scent of the bombers. It was in the center of town, a park square with trees, a ball diamond, and a bandstand.

  It would be unlikely they would make a reconnaissance drive through Wells Church without circling the park.

  Hawker stopped at a take-out and bought a half-dozen roast beef and ham sandwiches, two Thermoses of coffee, another Thermos of iced tea, and some toilet tissue.

  At dusk he parked on the east side of the park. He figured the terrorists would probably be coming from D.C., so the east side of the park would be the most likely place to see them.

  How he would recognize them as terrorists, Hawker didn’t know. It seemed unlikely they would wear black hats or Simon Legree mustaches.

  But he had to try.

  The vigilante set up his telescope in an open area in plain sight. He placed the sandwiches and the coffee beneath the bench, and then he sat and watched darkness take the suburb.

  When Venus materialized above the orange afterglow, Hawker focused the telescope on it, then on the waxing moon.

  During the next twelve hours he was approached twice by city cops, nine times by homosexuals, and once by a woman who was not a prostitute.

  He found it troubling that homosexuals had traveled so much farther from the closet than liberated women.

  No matter who he was approached by, Hawker did the same routine each time: he clamped his eye to the eyepiece of the telescope and began to mutter to himself like Fred MacMurray just before he invented Flubber.

  The homosexuals were intrigued, the woman was bored, and the cops were indifferent.

  Eggheads with telescopes didn’t cause many problems.

  That’s just what Hawker wanted them to think.

  He left the telescope three times to follow different vehicles that he thought might contain terrorists: two trucks and a van.

  Each time, he was wrong.

  He returned to his apartment at dawn, dead tired, his head still spinning from all the coffee he had drunk, hoping like hell the bombers hadn’t slipped past him.…

  nine

  The next night Hawker was back at the park with his telescope. On the street he noticed a marked increase in the number of unmarked government cars and square-jawed men in sunglasses.

  Rehfuss had gotten Hawker’s message.

  The CIA was out in force—and the vigilante hoped like hell he was the only one to notice.

  More than once, CIA types gave Hawker steely looks as they passed him by. But they never stopped. They had their orders: leave the guy with the red telescope alone.

  Hawker was relieved.

  If there was one organization in the world he didn’t want after him, it was the CIA.

  The hours ticked by. He ate more sandwiches, drank more coffee. The telescope was superb. Between watching cars, he got breathtaking views of the moons of Jupiter and the Great Nebulae of Orion.

  The beauty of the galaxy dwarfed the madness of tiny Earth, and relegated terrorist baby-killers to the level of primal slime.

  Hawker looked forward to getting his hands on the bastards.

  At about 3 A.M. he noticed the fourth suspicious vehicle of the evening. It was a square-backed truck, a laundry truck marked DONGEL’S LAUNDRY/WE DELIVER.

  Hawker tried to remember a laundry truck that didn’t read “We pick up and deliver.”

  How could a laundry truck deliver if it didn’t pick up?

  It was a small thing. But, at 3 A.M., the small things stood out. Knowing perfectly well that he was getting a little punch-drunk from lack of sleep and too much coffee, Hawker decided to follow the laundry truck.

  What could it hurt?

  There were CIA men everywhere.

  Besides, he hadn’t followed a suspicious vehicle for more than two hours and he was getting bored standing in the park.

  Hawker packed the telescope neatly away. He got into his rental Ford and went out into the empty streets, several blocks behind the laundry truck.

  He did not turn on his headlights.

  As he drove he noticed with a chill that as the truck moved into a residential area, it, too, switched out its lights. The truck was painted brown, so all Hawker could see was the occasional moon-flash of chrome.

  He pressed the accelerator down.

  The terrorists had to be in the laundry truck.

  James Hawker was determined to get to them before the CIA did.…

  ten

  The vigilante tried to stay well behind them, afraid the terrorists might sense a trap and flee before he had a chance to get them in his sights.

  The obvious danger was that he would stay too far back and lose them.

  That’s exactly what happened.

  Half a mile ahead, he saw the laundry truck’s brake lights flare briefly before turning left down a residential street. The street was a cavern of big trees. By the time Hawker got there, the truck had disappeared in the darkness.

  Hawker gunned the Ford. At the first cross street, he skidded to a stop. He looked both ways. No laundry truck. He spun the wheels, sprinting to the next stop sign. Still no truck.

  They had disappeared.

  Hawker drove three more blocks, turned left, and switched on his lights. He pulled out the map he had gotten at the telephone company. The only dead-end streets were two blocks over, by the golf course.

  The terrorists could have turned anywhere, gone anywhere.

  Damn it!

  The only hope he had was that the men in the laundry truck would double back on their reconnaissance route, and he could pick them up at the city park again.

  If that failed he would have to track down one of the CIA people and tell them to put out an all-points on the laundry truck. More innocent people weren’t going to be bombed just because of his stupidity!

  Hawker shoved the car in gear and headed away. He forced himself to drive at a reasonable speed. He retraced his route around the block, cut down a strange street that should have brought him out on Jefferson, the main road.

  Halfway down the block sat the laundry truck. It was parked at the curb, lights out.

  Hawker caught himself just before he jammed on the brakes.

  He drove right on past the truck at an even speed. He touched his turn signal at the stop sign and headed out toward the main road.

  It was 3:34 A.M.

  He drove four blocks, shut out his lights, turned around in a driveway, and backtracked another two blocks before he pulled over and got out of the car.

  Hawker switched out the dome light before he opened the back door. He pulled up the seat and removed his black wool sweater, his Navy watch cap, his canvas satchel, which he wore around his chest like a bando
lier, and his thin black leather gloves. He pulled on the sweater, then touched his calf to make sure the Randall Model 18 Attack/Survival knife was still in place, strapped to his leg.

  It was.

  Then he buckled on the Colt .44 magnum in its shoulder holster, and hefted the Colt Commando automatic rifle. The Colt was a chopped-down version of the M16. It still fired the 5.56-mm rounds, but the stock slid in so that it was only twenty-eight inches long. It carried a twenty-round detachable box-type clip, and it had an effective killing range of two hundred meters. He had plenty of fresh clips taped back-to-back, for easy loading.

  Hawker had used the Colt Commando before, and he trusted it.

  The only customizing he had done was to add a Star-Tron Mark 303A night-vision scope. The Star-Tron absorbed all peripheral light—light from the stars, the moon, the streetlights—and regenerated it so that it made objects seen through the scope appear as bright as if they were being seen at high noon on a cloudy day.

  Hawker switched on the Star-Tron and scanned the area ahead of him.

  Through the red glow of the scope, he saw nothing but a stray cat stalking something near a garbage can. He didn’t expect to see the terrorists—the laundry truck was still two blocks away, around the corner.

  Hawker closed the door of the Ford gently and jogged across the street into the shadows of the sidewalk. The houses here were big and substantial: two-story brick or clapboard executive strongholds with vast lawns mowed like golf greens. Halfway down the block, Hawker cut through one of the yards to the back. He planned to approach the laundry truck from the rear of the nearest house.

  Fences divided the yards, and Hawker climbed the front section of fence and slid down the other side. In the enclosed yard was a pool, a bonsai-style rock garden, and a barbecue grill. He climbed over the back section of fence to the yard of the next house. It had a pool, a tennis court, and a hot tub.

  Hawker reflected that it was no wonder there were so many poor people in America—the bureaucrats got paid too much.

  He shouldn’t have wasted the time in reflection.

  The yard had something else besides a pool and a hot tub.