Capitol Punishment (An Art Jefferson Thriller Book 3) (36 page)

Art continued looking at the fuzzy image of what could be a young life thrown away.
Could be.
“I can’t be sure.”

“Sorry,” Rogers said. “Thanks for the rush, Sue.” He put a hand on the technician’s shoulder.

“I appreciate you looking at this, David,” Art said.

“That’s what I’m here for.” Rogers patted Art on the back, the action jogging his memory. “By the way, I’ve got some good news for you.”

“How so?”

“The secretary of state is going to be away from the State of the Union address and Director Jones is going to be with him,” Rogers explained. “Boys’ night out, I guess. Anyway, the director wants you to join them.”

“Me?”

Rogers nodded. “Somewhere, Art, you made an impression on the man. He heard you were in town and, well, when the director asks the likes of me if I can spare you for one night, I don’t see myself saying no.”

“David, that’s—”

“And if I were an agent about to move up in the world, I wouldn’t say no to the invitation.” Rogers punctuated the suggestion with a cautionary glare.

“I don’t like it,” Art said.

“Go,” Frankie prompted.

“Aguirre will be at the Capitol,” Rogers said. “Part of our supplement to Service security.”

“I’ll send you a postcard,” Frankie joked.

“Amusing, partner.”

Rogers suppressed a grin at the exchange. “So I’ll convey your acceptance?”

“Convey away,” Art said. He’d had to give in to worse things in his life. One boring night with D.C. types wouldn’t kill him.

*  *  *

Number 4387 Monroe was an extremely comfortable two-story colonial done in red brick on the outside and tasteful shades of white on the inside. Mustafa Ali was admiring the latter as he let Roger in the back door.

“Man, I hate this,” Roger said as the door closed behind him. “This breaking-in shit.”

Mustafa walked back to the kitchen countertop he’d crawled carefully over after having broken one pane of glass in the window to the left of the sink to gain access to the latch. He made sure the latch had been reset, then brushed some of the shattered glass onto the tiled floor, making a pattern that stretched to the refrigerator across the room. He reached into his pocket and removed a baseball, laying it on the floor near the large appliance. “Stupid kids should be more careful,” he said, then headed off through the house. Roger followed with a longish gym bag under his arm.

The bedrooms were obviously upstairs, so that was where they went first. There turned out to be three on the second floor, one of which was set up as a music room of sorts, with stereo equipment and a collection of old vinyl LPs and CDs that covered the breadth of the big band era. The next room they checked had to be the one Vorhees used. Its centerpiece was a surprisingly small bed with sheets and covers tossed haphazardly up over the pillows. The congressman wasn’t a neat freak at home, it appeared.

“Check it out,” Mustafa directed, pointing to the adjoining bathroom. He went to the dresser and, with gloved hands, slid each drawer out carefully. Nothing. Next was the closet. It was to his right and was closed off by twin doors. He parted them and, holding the mini-flashlight in his teeth, lit up the space. What he was searching for was there, leaning in the corner like an old umbrella. “Brother Roger. I got it.”

Roger hurried to the closet and lifted the artificial limb, examining it in the light. “It’s close. It looks close.” The obvious difference between it and the one they had in the bag was the series of straps that wrapped the upper portion, connecting it to a semi-rigid knee brace that itself was topped by more straps to affix the limb securely to the thigh. It was a clunker, all right. Roger had seen better on some of the brothers back in L.A. But the added gear was not a problem. They had expected it, and simply transferred it to the prosthesis they had brought with them.

“There’s some marks by the ankle,” Mustafa pointed out. He held the leg now while Roger opened the small makeup kit they’d brought along. A few strokes of a non-oily foundation prepared the area of their leg, and a dab of an eyebrow pencil did the rest. This they repeated for every blemish that they could find, until the difference between the two limbs was almost nil. “How does it feel?”

Roger hefted it up and down a few times, comparing the weight and balance to the real one now tucked in the bag. “About the same.”

“Good,” Mustafa said. “He’ll never know the difference.”
Until it’s too late.
“Okay, put it back. Right where it was.”

Roger leaned the limb back in the corner, made sure nothing was disturbed, then closed the closet door. “We did it.”

“We did
this
,” Mustafa said. He let the light fall from his mouth to his hand. “
It
comes Friday.”

Roger agreed with a nod. “Whatever. Let’s get out of here now.”

“Nervous, Brother Roger?”

“Cautious, Brother Mustafa,” Roger countered. He saw that it didn’t convince his comrade. “Come on.”

Mustafa followed Roger down the stairs. They waited ten minutes at the front door, until it was just fifteen minutes shy of midnight. They then let themselves out, making sure the latch was set to lock when closed. Only the deadbolt remained unlocked, but that was of no concern. An oversight on the congressman’s part when leaving that evening. A state dinner, a dead friend. He had a lot on his mind. Such a minor slip was to be expected. A simple mistake. It wouldn’t have been his first.

TWENTY EIGHT

The Switch

It wasn’t a bad little place, Darian thought, but then they’d only be there a short time. Still, it did feel good to have everyone together. And the extra room this larger apartment in Arlington provided made it all the more comfortable.

But comfort was only incidental. They were there for a reason. There to prepare for the big night. There to take the last steps that would set things in motion.

“Whiteboy ain’t got his head screwed on straight if he thinks there won’t be cops there,” Mustafa said, his powerful fingers pressing the .45-caliber shells into the stack of magazines they’d acquired for the Ingrams. He wore no gloves this time. It didn’t matter if there were prints on the casings. Who would know, who would care? But if there was going to be a fight, they were going to breathe plenty of fire. No ammo worries on Friday.

“It’s supposed to be low-key,” Darian said. He was busying his hands with cleaning the Ingrams, as well as the half-dozen pistols and revolvers that lay on the bed between him and Moises. On the floor the “toy” Mustafa had brought with them from L.A., something he’d “acquired” from an associate in the Army some years before, lay on an open towel. It looked like a break-open shotgun on steroids. “And we’ll be shooting first.”

Mustafa stopped what he was doing and looked up. “There’s gonna be a fight.”

“Then a fight there’ll be,” Moises interjected confidently.

“Yeah,” Mustafa said with little faith. “Virgin boy here who ain’t done hardly more than pop some unarmed ratbeard is gonna take out Secret Service pigs.”

“Brother Moises will do fine,” Darian said with confidence.

Mustafa eyed their youngest comrade, then looked back to his leader. “Right.”

“Trust me, Brothers. We’re gonna do this.” He laid the Ingram he’d been cleaning on the bed and took the two .357 revolvers in hand. “Brother Moises, load these. We’ve got work to do tonight.”

The door from the living room opened. Roger took half a step into the room, his eyes on his leader. “Brother Darian.”

“What?” The NALF leader didn’t bother looking up.

“I need to talk to you.”

Now his eyes came up. “Talk.”

“In here.”

Both Moises and Mustafa sensed the strangeness in that request as they looked to their comrade.

“It’s important,” Roger said. He backstepped into the living room, beckoning his leader.

Darian stood and went to Roger, the door closing behind. “What is it? This isn’t good, talking like this. What’s with you? What are they supposed to think, Brother Roger? Huh?”

Roger backed farther away from the door to the couch. “I saw something.”

“Saw? Saw what?” Darian demanded impatiently. An Ingram, its suppressor affixed, lay on a piece of furniture. “You are supposed to have that weapon in your hands, watching that door, making sure that no one gets the drop on us. Is that what you were doing coming in there and saying you had something important to say?”

Roger bent down and reached between the cushions near the Ingram. A folded newspaper came out in his hand.

“What is that?”

Roger held it out to Darian. “The paper. The one you got the classifieds from. Remember?”

An old paper? What...
“What are you doing with it?”

“I looked at the front page that day,” Roger admitted. “There was a story about what we did in L.A. I just wanted to take a look at it, to see what—”

“Propaganda,” Darian said. “You know better than to read that shit.”

“Not this, Brother Darian,” Roger countered. “This was talking about something different. Look at it.”

Darian unfolded the paper and immediately saw the small headline that had to have captured his comrade’s attention: WHITE SUPREMACIST WAS SUSPECT IN WORLD CENTER ATTACK. Below that was a picture of John Barrish...and of his wife and two sons. One of those looked amazingly like the white boy with the funky eye that they’d been meeting with.

“That’s him,” Roger said.

Darian looked up from the story.

“That Barrish guy is the one who got off for killing those girls at the church on Crenshaw!” Roger said in a suppressed shout. “Brother Moises’ little sister was one of them!”

“You had this all the time?”

Roger nodded. “I didn’t want to, you know... That thing sounds like we were working for him.”

Darian read some more, then crumpled the paper into a ball. “It says he wasn’t a suspect anymore.”

“Brother, his kid was the cracker we were meeting with!”

Roger always had been the most timid of the NALF’s small number. Now he was more than that. “Have you shown this to the others?”

“No. I didn’t want to believe it myself. But...” Roger looked to the carpet, then to his leader again. “I can’t do this no more. It’s been eating at me. These guys aren’t no tax protesters. They’re killers, man, and they’ve killed our people. Do you think Brother Moises would be doing this if he knew who the crackers we’ve been dealing with are?”

Darian squeezed the ball of newsprint smaller, and pressed it into his pocket.
You shouldn’t have read that, Brother Roger. It’s too late to stop now. We’ve come too far. And now you can’t come any farther.
He stepped closer to his comrade. “Go get the others.”

Darian stepped aside, toward the couch, to let Roger pass. When he did, Darian reached quickly to the couch and took the Ingram in hand. He spun and raised the weapon in one smooth motion, taking the selector switch from safe to single shot with his thumb. As Roger’s hand was reaching for the bedroom door, the NALF leader shot him once in the back of his head.

A second later the door to the bedroom opened inward, Roger’s limp body collapsing completely to the floor at Mustafa’s feet. “What...”

Darian lowered the Ingram. The sound of the shot had hardly been louder than a phone book dropping to a solid floor, but that report, and the thud of Roger’s body tumbling against the bedroom door, had been enough to alert the other NALF members.

Moises pushed past Mustafa, his eyes flaring at the bloody sight. “What happened?”

“He wanted out,” Darian said matter-of-factly. “He got it.”

“Out?” Mustafa asked. “What do you mean?”

Darian tossed the Ingram across his front to the couch. “Out, Brother. Out. He was going soft on us.”

Mustafa looked to Roger’s still body. “Brother Roger?”

“Why do you think he wanted to talk to me away from you all? He didn’t have the stomach to say it in front of you.” Darian kicked the body’s feet. “Candy ass. He could have blown it all if I’d let him back away from this. He would’ve started shooting his mouth off. We could have all been burned by him.”

“Damn.” Mustafa stepped over the body.

“But how are we going to do it without him?” Moises asked.

“We’re just going to do it. Period. Now get those guns ready, Brother. We’ve got a job to do.” Darian looked to Mustafa. “So do you. Get this pile of shit out of here.”

*  *  *

“Bud, how’s your day?” Secretary of State James Coventry asked over the phone.

“Half up, half down,” the NSA answered blandly.

“An even split? Lucky you. Listen, Gordy’s going to be over at my place to watch the address tomorrow.”

“Oh?”

“He’s not exactly the Hill’s favorite person right now,” Coventry explained. “Anyway, I thought you might like to join us.”

Bud smiled to himself. “Heard about the compromise, did you? I keep my mug away from the cameras and Earl won’t throw a fit if the president talks about Iran.” There was a bit of sarcasm in the NSA’s relation of the political reality he’d been cast into.

“Just the smiling faces of HUD and Interior for the networks to see, I gather.”

“You gather correctly,” Bud confirmed. Earl Casey was pushing hard to craft this as a domestically centered campaign, leaving the NSA’s domain somewhat in the shadows. But a campaign was just that. Reality dictated the true importance of Bud DiContino’s expertise.

“Sure. Sounds like a plan. Who’s bringing the beer?”

“I’ll provide refreshments,” Coventry answered with a chuckle. “Oh, and Gordy’s inviting one of his agents who’s in town. You’ll remember him: Jefferson.”

“Art Jefferson? Yeah. A good man. He filled in a lot of the pieces after the assassination. I met him once. What’s he doing here?”

“Working with the D.C. Bureau people tracking down those militants.”

“What time?” Bud asked.

“Anytime before nine.”

“Sounds like a good time,” Bud observed.

“We can make it so.”

*  *  *

Congressman Richard Vorhees rounded the corner at a fast clip, splitting a pair of walkers coming at him on the sidewalk. “Evening.”