"What do you want?" the negotiator asked evenly.
Hardwin the terrorist smiled. He played the part with great panache. Worthy of an Oscar.
"There is time for that later." He checked his watch. "My men are about to release all of the White House employees captured during our raid. You should see them at your end right about now." There was a pause.
"I do."
Hardwin smiled, placing the palm of his watch hand delicately back on the President's desk. "If you would be kind enough not to shoot at them, that would be splendid for all concerned, I should think."
"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!"
There was a long wait while the hundreds of White House staffers and government employees trapped inside the building at the start of the siege were trundled down the long drive to the Fifteenth Street entrance.
Hardwin was inspecting his fingernails when the FBI negotiator resumed the conversation.
"What about the wounded? We'll need to come get them."
"They will be brought out to you."
"They shouldn't be moved, except by professionals."
"Agent Plover, do you really think I would allow your men to sneak onto these grounds dressed like emergency medical technicians? Perhaps I sound stupid to you."
"Unfortunately, you don't," the negotiator said.
Hardwin smiled. "It's kind of you to lie. But we both know that you do think I am stupid. After all, I am in the most famous building in the world, surrounded by FBI, Marines and Secret Service. What could I possibly want? How could I possibly hope to achieve my ends? Clearly, I must know that this will end in my death. I am stupid in your opinion, am I not, Agent Plover? Please, be honest. You will find that honesty is very important to me."
The FBI agent was reluctant to admit that this was indeed the case. "You could have been smarter," Agent Plover said finally.
"There. That wasn't so difficult," Hardwin said encouragingly. "I appreciate your honesty. You will find that I am not a brutal man. As with the other hostages, the wounded will be brought out to you. That is, if I have your word that my men will come to no harm."
No hesitation. "You do."
"Excellent. We have established a trust between us. Important for any working relationship."
The histrionics were unbelievable. There was no panic. No frantically screamed ultimatum. No gradual erosion of demands until the compromise of surrender was reached. There was an utter calm about Reginald Hardwin, terrorist. An icy assuredness. Hardwin's confidence radiated to Agent Plover.
"Who are you?" the FBI negotiator asked.
"I am the man who brought terror to your New York City. You would be advised to listen to me. Remember the Regency. I will be in touch." Hardwin calmly depressed End.
He dropped his hand to the president's desk. "And Act Two commences." He smiled. It was the phrase Captain Kill had used to describe this phase of the drama.
Thinking of his mysterious employer, Hardwin allowed his eyes to scan the rounded contours of the famous room.
It was bigger than it appeared in the movies. A few of his men patrolled beyond the French windows on the patio that led to the Rose Garden.
The drapes and furniture were ghastly. Exactly what one would expect from a hippie hillbilly, Hardwin thought.
After a few long moments of consideration, Hardwin lifted his cellular phone once more. Quickly, he stabbed out a familiar eleven-number code. When the connection was made, he pressed three more numbers for the proper extension.
"Solomon, Raithbone and Schwartz," a perky female voice exclaimed. "Mr. Leffer's office."
"Let me talk to Bernie," Reginald Hardwin the actor said. Maybe he could spin this into something bigger than underwear ads.
Chapter 22
Both Washington National and Dulles International Airports had been closed indefinitely. During the crisis in the nation's capital, Baltimore-Washington was also shut down, along with all of the smaller municipal airports scattered within the entire area of Maryland. The no-fly zone extended far into northern Virginia.
The only things airborne within a hundred-mile radius of Washington were military aircraft. Jets and helicopters crisscrossed the ominous, rainstreaked night sky.
So many planes were up at one point early on, there were nearly a dozen midair collisions. The number had been pruned down now, but the dead spaces between roars of thunder were still filled with the persistent hum of unseen aircraft.
The flight from Edwards in California had taken Remo directly to Bolling Air Force Base across the Potomac from Washington National. An Air Force helicopter was waiting for him there.
The chopper flight was a short hop up the Washington Channel to the tourist section of the city. Rotors slicing tension from the very air of the nation's capital, the helicopter deposited him near the Ellipse at Constitution Avenue and Fifteenth Street Northwest.
Behind him, the darkened Washington Monument held aloft the sallow sky. The spotlights that ordinarily lighted the great obelisk had been doused. Without illumination, the ring of American flags that encircled the monument should have been taken down. But etiquette of the flag, as well as all other social and civil mores, had been abandoned at the start of the crisis.
In darkness, the wet flags flapped crazily in the wind kicked up by the departing helicopter.
As the chopper tilted south into the rain, Remo raced in the opposite direction.
The Ellipse was choked with government officials. Waterproof maps were spread on car hoods. Questions were shouted back and forth, some heated. There seemed to be a turf war going on among different branches of law enforcement.
Rather than worry about having to fish in his pockets for proper ID, Remo merely plucked a laminated tag from the lapel of an unsuspecting FBI agent. As he walked, he affixed the silver clip to the collar of his own black T-shirt.
Weaving through the crowd, he found what appeared to be the nucleus of official activity.
"I'm telling you, FBI is in charge here," a bulky man in a tan raincoat was insisting when Remo arrived. A drenched tourist map of the city wilted in his wet hands.
"Not in there," snapped another. He wore a sopping wet black suit. A thin white cord ran from jacket to ear. "That's Secret Service's domain."
"Take it up with the Attorney General," the FBI assistant director challenged.
"No, you take it up with the Secretary of the Treasury," the Secret Service agent countered.
A gray-haired Marine colonel in full dress uniform was about to interject when Remo interrupted. "What's the situation?" Remo asked, voice taut. All three men spun on him. The FBI man noted Remo's stolen identification with harried irritation. "If you're FBI, you work for me, which means you shut up," the assistant director growled.
"In that case, I'm not FBI," Remo said.
There was a flash of movement, faster even than the streaks of lightning that split the sky above the darkened capital. The FBI man abruptly felt something flat and square slip between his lips.
At the same moment his tongue was tasting the ID tag's metal clip, his eyes noted that the laminated tag had vanished from the T-shirt of the man before him. Before he could spit out the name tag, the agent-who had to be an impostor-gave the ID a light tap with the tip of one finger. The assistant director's eyes shot open as the tag rocketed down his esophagus. He gagged and gulped and grabbed his throat.
As the FBI man danced in place, Remo spun to the shocked Marine colonel and Secret Service agent.
"Before anyone gets any bright ideas, I'm on your side and I can do the same thing with chevrons and sunglasses." His dark eyes were chipped from the ice-dead heart of a glacial rock. "What's the situation?"