Shall We Tell the President? (27 page)

A few moments later, a bell signalled their
arrival and the train came to a stop at the Senate side of the Capitol. Easy
life, thought Mark. These guys need never even wander out into the cold, cruel
world. They just shuttle back and forth between votes and hearings. The
basement on this side was a replica of the basement on the other side, a dull
yellow, with exposed plumbing, and the inevitable Pepsi machine; it must have
made Coca-Cola mad that Pepsi had the concession for the Senate. Mark bounded
up the small escalator and waited for the public elevator, while a couple of
men with a certain air of importance were ushered into the elevator marked
‘Senators Only’.

Mark got off on the ground floor, and looked
around, perplexed. Nothing but marble arches and corridors. Where was the
Senate Dining-Room? he asked one of the Capitol policemen.

‘Just walk straight ahead, take the first
corridor on the left. It’s the narrow one, the first entrance you get to.’ He
pointed.

Mark tossed a thank you over his shoulder
and found the narrow corridor. He passed the kitchens and a sign which
announced ‘Private - Press Only’.

Straight ahead, in large letters on a
wooden sign, he saw another ‘Senators Only’. An open door on the right led into
the anteroom, decorated with a chandelier, a rose-coloured, patterned carpet,
and green leather furniture, all dominated by the colourful, crowded painting
on the ceiling. Through another door, Mark could see white tablecloths, flowers,
the world of gracious dining. A matronly woman appeared in the doorway.

‘What can I do for you?’ she asked, raising
her eyebrows inquisitively.

‘I’m doing a thesis on the working life of
a senator for my PhD.’ Mark took out his wallet and showed his Yale ID card,
covering the expiration date with his thumb. The lady was not visibly
impressed.

‘I really only want to look at the room.
Just to get the atmosphere of the place.’

‘Well, there are no senators in here at the
moment, sir. There almost never are this late on a Wednesday. They start going
back to their home states on Thursdays for a long weekend. The only thing that
is keeping them here this week is that Gun Control bill.’

Mark had managed to edge himself into the
centre of the room. A waitress was clearing a table. She smiled at him.

‘Do senators sign for their meals? Or do
they pay cash?’

‘Almost all of them sign, and then they pay
at the end of the month.’

‘How do you keep track?’

‘No problem. We keep a daily record.’ She pointed
to a large book marked
Accounts.
Mark knew that twenty-three senators
had lunched that day because their secretaries had told him so. Had any other
senator done so without bothering to inform his secretary? He was a yard away
from finding out.

‘Could I just see a typical day? Just out
of interest,’ he asked with an innocent smile.

‘I’m not sure I’m allowed to let you look.’

‘Only a glance. When I write my thesis, I
want people to think that I really know what I’m talking about, that I’ve seen
for myself. Everyone’s been so kind to me.’

He looked at the woman pleadingly.

‘Okay,’ she said grudgingly, ‘but please be
quick.’

‘Thank you. Why don’t you pick any old day,
let’s say 24 February.’

She opened the book and thumbed through to
24 February. ‘A Thursday,’ she said. Stevenson, Nunn, Moynihan, Heinz, names
rang one after the other. Dole, Hatfield, Byrd. So Byrd lunched at the Senate
that day. He read on.
Templeman
, Brooks – Brooks as
well. More names. Barnes, Reynolds, Thornton. So his statement this morning was
for real. The hostess closed the book. No Harrison, no Dexter.

‘Nothing very special about that, is
there?’ she said.

‘No,’ said Mark. He thanked the woman and
left quickly.

In the street he hailed a taxi. So did one
of the three men following him; the other two went off to pick up their car.

Mark arrived at the Bureau a few moments
later, paid the driver, showed his credentials at the entrance, and took the
elevator to the seventh floor. Mrs McGregor smiled. The Director must be alone,
thought Mark. He knocked and went in.

‘Well, Mark?’

‘Brooks, Byrd, and Thornton are not
involved, sir.’

‘The first two don’t surprise me,’ said the
Director.

‘It never made any sense that they were,
but I’d have put a side bet on
Thornton
.
Anyway, how did you dispose of those three?’

Mark described his brainstorm about the
Senate dining-room, and wondered what else he had over-looked.

‘You should have worked all of that out
three days ago, shouldn’t you, Mark?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So should I,’ said the Director. ‘So we’re
down to Dexter and Harrison. It will interest you to know that both them, along
with almost all of the senators, intend to be in
Washington
tomorrow and both are down to
attend the ceremony at the Capitol. Amazing,’ he mused, ‘even at that level,
men like to watch then- crimes enacted.

‘Let’s go over it once again, Andrews. The
President leaves the south entrance of the White House at 10:00 am unless I
stop her, so we have seventeen hours left and one last hope. The boys in
Fingerprints have isolated the bill with Mrs
Casefikis’s
prints on it. The twenty-second, we may be lucky - with still another half
dozen to go we shouldn’t have had a hope before ten o’clock tomorrow. There are
several other prints on the bill, and they will be working on them all through
the night. I expect to reach home by midnight. If you come up with anything
before then, call me. I want you here in the office at 8:15 tomorrow. There’s
very little you can do now. But don’t worry too much; I have twenty agents
still working on it, though none of them knows all the details. And I’ll only
let the President into the danger zone if we have a fix on these villains.’

‘I’ll report at 8:15 then, sir,’ said Mark.

‘And, Mark, I strongly advise you not to
see Dr Dexter. I don’t want to blow this whole operation at the last moment,
because of your love life. No offence intended.’

‘No, sir.’

Mark left, feeling slightly superfluous.
Twenty agents now assigned to the case. How long had the Director had them
working round the clock without telling him? Twenty men trying to find out
whether it was Dexter or Harrison, without knowing why. Still, only he and the
Director knew the whole story, and he feared the Director knew more than he
did. Perhaps it would be wiser to avoid
Elizabeth
until the following evening. He picked up his car, and drove back to the
Dirksen
Building
and then remembered he had left
the hearings’ transcripts at the Committee Office. When he got there he found
himself drawn towards the telephone booths. He had to call her, he had to find
out how she was after her accident. He dialled Woodrow Wilson.

‘Oh, she left the hospital - some time
ago.’

Thank you,’ said Mark. He could, feel his
heart beat as he dialled her
Georgetown
number.

‘Elizabeth?’

‘Yes, Mark.’ She sounded - cold? frightened?
tired?

A hundred questions were racing through his
mind.

‘Can I come and see you right now?’

‘Yes.’ The telephone clicked.

Mark left the booth, conscious of the sweat
on the palms of his hands. One more job to do before he could drive off to
Elizabeth
, pick up those
damned papers from the Senate Gun Control Hearings.

Mark walked towards the elevator and
thought he could hear footsteps behind him. Of course he could hear footsteps
behind him; there were several people behind him. When he reached the elevator,
he pressed the Up-button and glanced around at the footsteps. Among the crowd
of Senate staffers, congressmen, and sightseers, two men were watching him - or
were they protecting him? There was a third man in dark glasses staring at a
Medicare poster, even more obviously an agent, to Mark’s quick eyes, than the
other two.

The Director had said that he had put
twenty agents on the case, and three of them must have been allocated to watch
Mark. Hell. Soon they would be following him back to
Elizabeth
and Mark did not doubt that the
Director would learn about it immediately. Mark resolved that no one was going
to follow him back to Elizabeth’s. It was none of their damned business. He’d
shake the three of them off. He needed to see her in peace, without prying eyes
and malicious tongues. He thought quickly as he waited to see which of the two
elevators would arrive first. Two of the agents were now walking towards him,
but the one by the Medicare poster remained motionless. Perhaps he wasn’t an
operative after all, but there certainly was something familiar about him. He
had the aura of an agent; other agents can sense it with their eyes shut.

Mark concentrated on the elevator. The
arrow on his right lit up and the doors opened slowly. Mark shot in and stood
facing the buttons and stared out at the corridor. The two operatives followed
him into the elevator, and stood behind him. The man by the Medicare poster
started walking towards the elevator. The doors were beginning to close. Mark
pressed the Open-button, and the doors parted again. Must give him a chance to
get in, and have all three of them together, Mark thought, but the third man
did not respond. He just stood, staring, as if waiting for the next elevator.
Perhaps he wanted to go down and wasn’t an agent at all. Mark could have sworn
... The doors began to close and at what Mark thought was the optimum point, he
jumped back out. Wrong. O’Malley managed to squeeze himself out as well, while
his partner was left to travel slowly but inevitably up to the eighth floor.
Now Mark was down to two tails. The other elevator arrived. The third agent
stepped into it immediately. Very clever or innocent, Mark thought, and waited
outside. O’Malley was at his shoulder - which one next?

Mark strolled into the elevator and pressed
the Down-button, but O’Malley was able to get in easily. Mark pressed the
Open-button and sauntered back out. O’Malley followed him, face impassive. The
third man remained motionless in the elevator. They must be working together.
Mark jumped back in and jabbed the Close-button hard. The doors closed horribly
slowly, but O’Malley had walked two paces away and was not going to make it. As
the doors slammed together, Mark smiled. Two gone, one standing on the ground
floor helpless, the other heading for the roof, while he was descending to the
basement alone with the third.

O’Malley caught up with Pierce Thompson on
the fifth floor. Both were out of breath.

‘Where is he?’ cried O’Malley.

‘What do you mean, where is he? I thought
he was with you.’

‘No, I lost him on the first floor.’

‘Shit, he could be anywhere,’ said
Thompson.

‘Whose side does the smart-ass think we are
on? Which one of us is going to tell the Director?
^’

‘Not me,’ O’Malley said. ‘You’re the senior
officer, you tell him.’

‘No way I’m telling him,’ Thompson said,
‘And let that bastard Matson take all the credit - you can be sure he’s still
with him. No, we’re going to find him. You take the first four floors and I’ll
take the top four. Bleep immediately when you spot him.’

When Mark reached the basement, he stayed
in the elevator. The third man walked out and seemed to hesitate. Mark’s thumb
was jammed on the Close- button again. The door responded. He was on his own.
He tried to make the elevator bypass the ground floor but he couldn’t; someone
else wanted to get in. He prayed it was not one of the three men. He had to
risk it. The doors opened and he walked out immediately. No agents in sight, no
one studying the Medicare poster. He ran towards the revolving doors at the end
of the corridor. The guard on duty looked at him suspiciously and fingered the
holster of his gun. Through the revolving doors and out into the open, running
hard. He glanced around. Everyone was walking, no one was running. He was safe.

Pennsylvania Avenue - he dodged in and out
of the traffic amid screeching tyres and angry expletives. He reached the
parking lot and jumped into his car, fumbling for some change. Why did they
make trousers that you couldn’t get your hands into when you sat down? He
quickly paid for his ticket and drove towards
Georgetown
- and
Elizabeth
.
He glanced in the rear-view mirror. No Ford sedan in sight. He’d done it. He
was on his own. He smiled. For once he had beaten the Director. He drove past
the lights at the corner of
Pennsylvania
and 14th just as they were changing. He began to relax.

A black Buick ran the lights. Lucky there
were no traffic cops around.

When Mark arrived in
Georgetown
,
his nervousness returned, a new nervousness associated with
Elizabeth
and her world, not with the
Director and his world. When he pressed the bell on her front door, he could
still hear his heart beating.