I should have taken something to control my automatic nervous responses, but I couldn’t take the chance of dulling my reactions.
And as beads of sweat rolled down my face, one of the security guards, a young black man, beckoned me over to one side.
“Sir?” he said.
I glanced over at him, smiled pleasantly, and wheeled myself toward where he stood, on one side of the metal detector.
“Your pass, please?”
“Surely,” I said, and handed him the pale blue card. “God, when does winter come? I simply can’t bear this weather.”
He nodded distractedly, looked quickly at the pass, and handed it back. “I love it just this temperature,” he replied. “Wish it could stay like this all year. Winter gets here all too soon-I hate cold weather myself.”
“I love it,” I said. “I used to love skiing.”
He smiled apologetically. “Sir, are you…”
I guessed at what he was trying to say. “I can’t get out of this damned thing easily, if that’s what you mean.” I smacked the gleaming teak armrests, in imitation of Toby. “Hope I’m not disrupting anything.”
“No, sir, not at all. Obviously you can’t go through the gate. I’m supposed to use one of those handheld deals.”
He was referring to the Search Alert handheld metal detection unit, which emitted an oscillating tone. When it came near metal, the frequency of the tone shot up.
“Go right ahead,” I said. “Again, sorry about all the inconvenience.”
“No problem, man. No problem at all. I’m sorry to have to do this to you. It’s just that they’re stepping up security tonight for some reason.” From a table next to the gate he took the small handheld device, a box attached to a long U-shaped metallic loop. “You’d think it’d be enough they make you get these passes. But they’re juicing up all the security. There’s another gate up there”-he pointed at the security station at the entrance to the hearing room a few yards away-“so you’re gonna have to go through this all over again. Guess you’re used to it, huh?”
“It’s the least of my problems,” I said placidly.
The device whined as he brought it near me, and I tensed. He ran it up my legs, over my knees, and suddenly, when it got to my thighs-and the concealed pistol-the box whooped up to a high pitch.
“What’ve we got here?” he muttered more to himself than to me. “Damn thing’s too sensitive. The metal in the chair’s setting it off.”
And as I sat there, dripping with sweat, the blood rushing in my ears, I suddenly heard the amplified voice of Alexander Truslow, coming from the loudspeaker system in the hall.
“… wish to thank the committee,” he was saying, “for calling public attention to this grave problem besetting the agency I so love.”
The guard dialed down the sensitivity knob and ran it over me again.
Once again, as it neared the arm of the chair, where the gun was concealed, it emitted a shrill metallic wail.
I tensed again, and felt droplets of sweat falling off my brow, my ears, the end of my nose.
“Goddamned thing,” the guard said. “Pardon my French, sir.”
Truslow’s voice again, clear and melodious:
“… certainly make my own job easier. Whoever this witness is, and whatever the substance of his testimony, it can only benefit us.”
“If you don’t mind,” I said, “I’d love to get in there before Truslow’s finished his testimony.”
He stepped back, switched the machine off in frustration, and said exasperatedly: “I hate those things. Go on around this way.” He escorted me around the metal detector gate. I nodded, cocked my head gamely in a kind of salute, and wheeled ahead to the next security station. It seemed to be a bottleneck; a sizable crowd was gathered there. Some of them were craning their necks, trying to see into the hearing room. What was the problem? What was the delay?
Again Truslow’s voice over the loudspeakers, calm and gracious: “… any testimony that can fling open the shutters and let in the light of day.”
Inwardly I cursed, my whole body screaming: Move it, damn it! Move! The assassin was already in place, and in a matter of seconds Molly’s father would walk into the room.
And here I was, detained by a bunch of rent-a-cops!
Move, goddamn it!
Move!
Again I was waved around to the side of the metal detector gate. This time it was a woman, white, middle-aged, with brassy blond hair, a buxom figure within an ill-fitting blue uniform.
She inspected my pass sourly, glanced up at me, and summoned someone over.
Here I was, a matter of feet, mere feet, from the entrance to Room 216, and this goddamned woman was taking her goddamned time.
From the hearing room I heard a loud gaveling. A murmur in the crowd. The sudden dazzlingly bright flash of cameras.
What was it?
Had Hal arrived in the room?
What the hell was going on?
“Please,” I said as the woman returned with another middle-aged woman, this one black and of thinner build, apparently her superior. “I’d like to get inside as soon as possible.”
“Hold on a second,” the blond woman said. “Sorry.”
She turned to her boss, who said, “I’m sorry, Mister, but you’re going to have to wait until the next recess.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. No! It couldn’t be!
From the hearing room, the stentorian tones of the committee counseclass="underline" “Thank you, Mr. Director. We all appreciate your coming here and lending your support to what can only be a painful time for the Central Intelligence Agency. At this point, with no further ado, we would like to bring in our final witness of these hearings. I would ask that there be no flash photography, and that everybody in the room please remain seated while-”
“But I have to get in there!” I objected.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the boss objected, “but we have our instructions not to admit anyone further at this time, until there’s a recess called or a break of some kind. I’m sorry.”
I sat, almost paralyzed with fear and anxiety, looking beseechingly at the two security guards.
In just seconds, now, Molly’s father would be murdered.
I couldn’t just sit here. I had come too far-we had come too far-to let this happen.
I had to do something.
SIXTY-NINE
Staring them down, eyes flashing with indignation, I said: “Look, it’s a medical emergency.”
“Of what sort, sir-”
“It’s medical, dammit. It’s personal. I don’t have any time!” I indicated my lap-my bladder, or my bowels, or whatever they chose to conclude.
This was a desperate move. I knew from the blueprints that there was no public restroom in the lobby. The only one equipped for the handicapped was outside the hearing room. But there was a public facility two flights up, which I could get to without going through security. I knew that, but would they? It was a calculated risk. And if they did?
The black woman shrugged, then grimaced.
“All right, sir-”
I felt my body flood with relief.
“-go on through. There’s a men’s restroom off to the left that has handicapped facilities. But, please, don’t enter the hearing room until…”
I didn’t wait for her to finish. With a great spurt of energy I wheeled off to the left, toward the entrance to the hearing room.
Another guard manned the entrance. From where I sat, I had an excellent vantage point. Room 216 of the Hart Senate Office Building was a spacious, modern, two-floor chamber built with television in mind. Standing floodlights illuminated the entire room, for the sake of the television cameras. There were panels inset in the walls for cameras to be trained down on the hearing room; and, on the second floor, the press gallery, behind plate glass and toward the rear of the room.