Terror in D.C. Page 8

  “That’s another reason the police are mad at the mysterious Mister X—you didn’t let them take any of the terrorists alive. How in the hell you freed those hostages, killed all the bombers, and still escaped without getting nabbed by the cops is one hell of a trick. And you’d better be glad you pulled it off. Talk is, they think they could have gotten some information if one of the camel jockeys had lived. Did any of them live, Hawk?”

  “Yeah, they’re singing and dancing right now with some guy named Mohammed, merchant of Mecca.”

  “Does that mean you killed them all?”

  “It does.”

  “How many were there? I know they found two corpses out behind the house, but after that explosion—”

  “There were five of them in all. I took the last three to a brushy area, tied them together, then taped the bombs to them. I guess they sat there for about twenty minutes before the bombs finally went off—an unpleasant wait, I’d think.”

  Rehfuss whistled softly. “Jesus, you are a cold bastard, aren’t you? I guess that explains reports of human appendages raining down on the nation’s capital.”

  “Justice is a rare commodity, Lester. I think what they got was just. What about the two corpses I left behind? Did you get any make on them?”

  “Nope. Not yet. The Washington P.D. is a good bunch, and if they don’t have any luck, they’ll turn it over to the FBI. If those boys can’t place the fingerprints, it means the dearly departed not only entered this country illegally, but they probably wore gloves the whole time they were here.”

  “I hope they hurry. I have the feeling those five weren’t acting alone. And whoever is behind it isn’t going to be happy about losing a whole crew. I think they’ll plan another bombing real soon.”

  “So what’s your next move, Hawk?”

  “I have to get some scribbling on an appointment calendar translated.”

  “What language?”

  “Arabic, I think.”

  “I can have that done for you. Can you drop it off at the complex gatehouse?”

  “Sure. I’m going downtown to the Capitol Building anyway. I can stop on the way.”

  “The Capitol? I can’t picture you taking one of those guided tours.”

  “I’m not. I’ve got an appointment with Senator Thy Estes.”

  “Senator Estes!” Rehfuss gave a bawdy whistle. “Consider yourself among the lucky few, Hawk. A lot of very wealthy, very important men would like to have a private appointment with that lady.”

  “She’s pretty?”

  “The word ‘pretty’ doesn’t cover it. She’s got that weird magnetism … I don’t know what it is or what you would call it, but it makes her attractive and desirable as hell. I’m not the only one who has noticed it. Hell, she’s no spring chicken. She must be in her mid-forties, but she’s got that bright red hair, and that body—but you don’t need to hear any more. You’ll see for yourself. But remember, she’s a married lady.”

  “The Senator’s First Gentleman, huh?”

  “Not exactly. Her husband is one of the biggest assholes in D.C.—a real estate baron who has a reputation for being a twenty-four-hour drunk. The really mean gossip has it that he likes to play weird games with male hookers when the mood is upon him. But the senator is a straight arrow, a really great lady who deserves a hell of a lot better.”

  “I just want to see if she knows any more about her sister’s family getting blown up. I could care less about the honorable senator’s marriage history or what she looks like.”

  “Okay, okay—I was just trying to fill you in.”

  “I appreciate it, ole friend, and I’ve got one more question.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know anything about a man called Isfahan?”

  There was a short silence on the other end of the phone. “Doesn’t ring a bell, but I can sure check around. Where did you hear it?”

  “From the terrorists—just before I cast their fates to the wind.”

  “You are a cold bastard.”

  “Yeah, but I’m lovable. Talk to you later, Lester—”

  “Wait a minute, Hawk.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well … I just wanted to tell you that not everyone thinks you screwed up last night. I, for one, think you did a hell of a job. Admiral Percival agrees. He told me to give you his compliments.”

  “Lester?”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell him I’d prefer the half-million dollars.”

  fourteen

  James Hawker had entered the Capitol Building by the west portico after first standing on the steps near the crypt, reviewing in silence the Statue of Freedom perched atop the building’s bright white cupola.

  Then he made his way down the marble halls of the north wing, the Senate side of the Capitol, along the line of open doors. Most of the senators weren’t in their offices. But their secretaries were. Hawker took an informal survey as he walked. He saw more than two dozen secretaries between the rotunda and Thy Estes’s office. All of them were very pretty. Most of them were brunettes or blondes. They looked up and smiled as Hawker clickity-clacked by. They were firm-breasted, sleek, stylish, and had bodies that squeezed at the heart.

  Hawker had seen these women before on his few previous trips to Washington, and though the faces changed, the personality type did not. These were the power groupies, the best of the large female herd attracted to D.C. by the allure of association with the men who held the reins of history. They came in many guises, in many roles. In the 1960s they had come as peace advocates or freedom marchers. Now the favorite facade was that of the “modern” woman, an independent business person who demanded respect and equality. But whatever the current social costume happened to be, the goals of the power groupies remained always the same: do anything they had to do to find some niche in the power structure, then hang on to that little crevice of importance by whatever means necessary.

  The standard vehicle was, of course, sex. As a result, the prettiest of the power groupies usually prevailed. The rest either meshed into the Washington treadmill of lesser jobs, or they went home with the hopes of marrying a member of the hometown power structure. Some, no doubt, succeeded at neither, and these girls were to be found beneath the streetlamps in the bowels of the city.

  In truth the jobs of the successful and unsuccessful did not differ all that much.

  Hawker’s appointment with Senator Thy Estes was scheduled to last twenty minutes. It was on her secretary’s agenda: “James Hawker, friend of J. M. Hayes: 5:10 P.M. to 5:30.”

  It was to have been the senator’s last appointment of the day, a courtesy call that demanded her to do nothing more than shake hands and smile.

  As it turned out, though, she and Hawker were still talking when the senator’s brass and maple grandmother clock gonged seven times.

  Her secretary had long gone, as had most of the other workers in the north wing of the Capitol Building.

  To Hawker it seemed like they had just started talking. As in the film musicals of old, time flew by. Lester Rehfuss was right. The woman had a weird magnetism. It had nothing to do with her looks—although she was attractive enough. She was a solid-looking woman in her early forties, two inches under six feet, with good shoulders, long runner’s legs, firm globes of buttocks beneath the gray tweed skirt suit she wore. Her heavy breasts, like well-formed melons, strained against her prim white blouse. She had glistening mahogany hair that she wore up in a matronly bun, and Hawker guessed it added a year or two to her looks. But her face had a sly, ripe handsomeness, a polished-wood sort of beauty, like Maureen O’Hara, and there was something in her jade-green eyes that glimmered with challenge—something untouchable, unknowable, but exciting. It was with her eyes that she seemed to communicate most effectively. Her lips formed sentences: sometimes interesting, sometimes funny, always articulate. But her eyes spoke of intimacy: an intellectual intimacy that was sometimes underscored by the suggestion of a warmer, more physical variety of
closeness.

  As Hawker sat talking to her, he tried to sort it out on some deeper level.

  It wasn’t easy to understand. Within five minutes of meeting the woman she had made him feel like the wisest, funniest, most important man in her life. Her intense interest in his every word took Hawker aback at first. But then he realized that she was one of the very few people who had the energy or the ability to make people feel instantly good about themselves, immediately of greater worth than allotted them by the drab world outside. Hawker understood that it was exactly for this reason that she was a United States senator. People who met her felt the magnetism; they felt her intense interest in them; they trusted her and they damn well voted for her.

  It was with a slight twinge of jealousy that the vigilante realized that all men who had sat across the desk from her felt as she had made him feel. And it irritated him that he would react emotionally to a political technique. She was just a woman, damn it, just another politician. She was married besides, and even if she wasn’t, it would be unlikely that a female U.S. senator would allow herself to get romantically involved with a man who wasn’t part of the power structure and, worse, refused to be a cog in anyone’s machine.

  Or would she?

  It irritated Hawker even more that he cared.

  He sat in a heavy leather chair across the desk from her. The desk was a huge polished oval of mahogany. On it was a pale leather blotter, neat baskets of correspondence, a brass nameplate, and a quill pen in an inkwell. In one corner of the room was the American flag; in the other corner, the flag of the state that had elected her. On the wall were photographs of her with the President and with various other world leaders.

  They had spent the first hour in fast and easy, often humorous conversation about subjects that seemed to link together in a chain. He had gotten his tan in Florida? She loved Florida, yes, especially the west coast. He must know a great deal about fishing. She loved to fish for tarpon, but could he really teach her how to use a fly rod well enough to take a fish that size? And so the conversation went. From fishing to boats to Key West to Lake Michigan to their mutual friend Jacob Montgomery Hayes, to Chicago to great vacation spots to Little Cayman Island. Hawker was so captivated by her curious blend of girlishness, beauty, intellect, sexuality, and maturity that he had to keep reminding himself that this wasn’t just a woman he was talking to, this was a well-rehearsed, well-schooled package known as a United States senator. She was no more attracted to him than she was the average friend-of-a-friend from off the street.

  Finally embarrassed by his own schoolboy emotion, Hawker forced himself to turn abruptly businesslike.

  “Senator Estes,” he said, “I know you’re a busy person, so maybe I’d better ask my questions and let you get about your business.”

  The woman leaned back in her chair, her eyebrows raised. “Jake Hayes said you had a one-track mind when it came to your … profession. So far, everything he’s told me about you has proven true.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes—and it’s all good, by the way.” She smiled. “Why do you look at me like that? It’s because you’re surprised Jake would talk to anybody about you, isn’t it? Don’t worry, James. Jake and I are very old and very dear friends. I’ve been hearing about you ever since that … that terrible night when his son was murdered. Since then, I have heard a great deal about James Hawker. He’s awfully fond of you, you know. He says you’re one of the great anachronisms. He says you’re really from another time, a time of quests and knights and ladies fair. But you probably know Jake’s penchant for mysticism—reincarnation and such things. I must say, though, he painted an awfully attractive picture of you.”

  “That was kind of Jacob, Senator Estes, but right now I think we ought to discuss the reason I am here.”

  “Certainly, James, but I’m in no hurry. Really. And, please call me Thy—as in theater, remember.” She settled back over the desk, smiling.

  “Okay … Thy. It may be painful for you to talk about so soon, but I’d like to know more about your late sister, Betty Rutledge, and her family.”

  The smile slowly gave way to a look of resignation. “I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  Hawker nodded, sorry that he had stripped away her energized facade with one chilling sentence. “I’m not even sure what I want to know, Thy,” he began. “Anything might help. The little things can sometimes be pieced together to make a very important chunk of the puzzle. I guess what I’m looking for is some clue to explain why your sister’s home was chosen out of all the houses in Bethesda to be bombed.”

  “But the bombings are random, aren’t they, James? That’s what everyone says.”

  “Maybe they are, Thy. But I get real uncomfortable when people start connecting coincidence with premeditated murder. It’s a damn rare combination. It’s possible, sure—maybe even probable in this case. Terrorists motivated by a political or religious cause seldom go by the book. But before I accept the killings as random, I need to prove it to myself. It seems very unlikely that the terrorists would murder more than two dozen people in seven different attacks without knowing at least a few of the victims.”

  The senator thought for a moment. “When you put it that way, James, it makes sense. It’s hard to believe that they would kill that many people without grinding a few personal axes.” She looked at him pointedly. “What about last night in Wells Church? Was that random? Or had they already picked out their victims?”

  Hawker returned her level gaze. “Last night? How would I know? All I know is what I read in the papers, Senator.”

  “I see. Is that the way you want it, James?”

  “I’m afraid that’s the way it has to be.”

  “I don’t know why, but you make one anxious to be taken into your confidence, anxious to earn some demonstration of your respect. I’m sorry I don’t yet qualify. But, if the day did come when you felt you could trust me, I would be very pleased to listen.”

  Her green eyes were earnest, her face handsomer for its seriousness, and once again Hawker felt the schoolboy rush of emotion. What did they used to call it? Smitten. That’s right, he was smitten. He wanted to take the woman in his arms and hold her close and treat her as kindly as one human being can treat another.

  Instead, he shrugged with cold indifference. “I’m still waiting to hear about your late sister’s family.”

  “I don’t really even know how to begin.”

  “How about with the fact that you are the only woman on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Do you think there’s any chance of a connection? Maybe the terrorists were trying to hurt you by bombing your sister’s house.”

  “God, I’d never even thought about that—”

  “And you don’t need to think about it unless the terrorists have let you know that you are the reason. To hurt you, they would have to inform you. How about it, Senator Estes? Any cryptic notes or anonymous calls?”

  The woman thought for a moment. “No-o-o-o. Nothing that I would consider suspicious.”

  “Any important hearings coming up that might fare better if you weren’t at full emotional strength?”

  “That would be a possibility at almost any other time of the year—but not now. You see, we’re getting ready for a short spring recess.”

  “Have you made any enemies in the Mideastern diplomatic corps?”

  “Who can say what those people think? They all smile like stray dogs. But I think that I am on reasonably good terms with most of them.”

  Hawker scowled at the wall.

  “I’m afraid I’m not helping much,” the woman smiled, getting up from her desk. She came around the corner and touched Hawker’s arm gently. The vigilante drew his arm away at the heat of her touch, and the woman smiled at him as she might at a teenager who had stumbled over his feet. “Why don’t we continue this conversation over dinner?” she suggested.

  “I’m afraid I already have plans,” Hawker heard himself say—and immediately hated himself
for telling such a stupid lie.

  “Oh? Oh. I see.” The smile brightened. “Well, you can at least walk me to my car then. We can talk more on the way.”

  “I’d be happy to, Senator—”

  “It’s Thy, damn it!”

  fifteen

  The man confronted them in the back parking lot, a huge balding man with pale-pink skin and bowling-ball fists. He weaved toward them, his expensive suit wrinkled, tie loosened, slurring his words and scowling like a man with murder on his mind.

  Thy Estes stopped cold when she saw him, then pulled instinctively closer to Hawker.

  “So where is the snooty bitch off to tonight?” the man roared, charging closer. “The Far East? The White House? Or maybe just that red-haired asshole’s bed.”

  Hawker looked quickly at the woman beside him. Her face had gone stern, pale, fearful.

  “Didn’t even return my calls … damn secretary told me you were out of the office—”

  “I was out of the office, Jack!”

  “Lying bitch!”

  The big man grabbed her wrist with his right hand and tried to push Hawker roughly aside with his shoulder. The vigilante stomped down hard on the arch of his foot and grabbed him by the lapels when he opened his mouth to roar in pain.

  “I don’t know who you are, friend, but I think you ought to go crawl in a corner and sleep it off.”

  The big man took a lumbering swing at Hawker. The vigilante ducked under it, then stepped away from a ponderous left hook. Hawker shoved him roughly away. “Friend, even drunks can go too far. Now I’ll give you one last warning—”

  The man threw himself at Hawker, catching him with a painful right to the side of the neck. Hawker’s face flushed. He drove his left hand deep into the man’s soft belly, then hit him with a halfhearted punch to the jaw. The big man backpedaled and fell to the asphalt, out cold.

  “Jesus,” said Hawker in disbelief, “I didn’t even hit him hard.”

  The woman said nothing and walked quickly to the side of the fallen man. She knelt over him and checked his pulse, then drew open an eyelid to check his pupils.