He zoomed and depixelated, thinking that maybe Joey would be impressed with him. But probably not.
A figure came into view, the photographer standing over the corpse. Face, upper torso, camera held out to take the picture.
Fortunately, the camera blocked only part of his jaw. Evan zeroed in on the face, let the software do its work.
The eyes achieved clarity first. Then the nose. At last the mouth achieved crispness, removing all doubt.
Orphan A.
The waiter returned, and Evan lowered the screen of his laptop.
“I brought the Spirytus, sir. How would you like it served?”
The Polish-made spirit claimed the title of the world’s highest-proof vodka at 192 proof, or 96 percent alcohol content. The strongest booze on the U.S. market, it had arrived here only after Eastern European communities from Brighton Beach to Sheepshead Bay had lobbied the New York State Liquor Authority.
By comparison, rubbing alcohol came in at 91 percent.
Evan said, “I’ll take the bottle.”
In honor of the hotel’s notorious past, Evan elected to stay in Room 314.
Under the same false name, he’d booked a few other suites that could, in the event of a raid, serve the same purpose as President Bennett’s dummy limousines.
The view was spectacular. The building’s curving avant-garde architecture mirrored the flow of the Potomac, Evan’s balcony looking across the slate-blue river at Theodore Roosevelt Island. To the south he could catch the edge of the JFK Center for the Performing Arts, a blocky rise set behind a respectable fringe of greenery.
But he wasn’t focused on the view now.
He was focused on what he was mixing in the ice bucket. For an oxidizer he used pool chlorine in the form of powdered crystals. For fuel, superfine 600-mesh powdered aluminum — a common paint mixture that added surface shine.
Spirytus vodka was the last part of the explosive cocktail.
The high-proof liquor turned the concoction into a slurry, keeping the compound stable, safer to handle, less susceptible to static and percussion.
And it was good to drink.
He took another sip now, let it blaze its way down his food pipe. Even on the rocks, it was an angry beverage, a longtime favorite of Siberian pilots, which was worrying for more reasons than he cared to reflect on.
Once the slurry gooed up into formable shape, Evan packed it into a foot-and-a-half length of tubular nylon, using a wooden spoon to avoid any sparks.
He wound the nylon into a circle and left it on the table to set. The alcohol would evaporate quickly as the compound hardened, making it more sensitive. A simple electric blasting cap and a cell-phone initiator would take care of the rest. When the time came, it would be like striking a match.
But sped up ten thousand times.
Evan crossed to the balcony and stared out at the water sweeping by, a ceaseless current that stopped for nothing and no one.
He thought about a third-grader named Zeke getting pulled out of school by a social worker. What had the first few days of being orphaned been like for him? Was he racked with gut-searing grief? Or was he still lost in the concussive aftermath of shock, his mind mercifully holding reality at bay, letting it seep in a drop at a time? This would become his story now: When I was eight, my parents were murdered.
Evan went back inside to his laptop and called up his e-mail.
In the Drafts folder, he typed: “Update?”
A moment later the unsent e-mail refreshed: “still nothing. take a chill pill, mr. patience.”
Resting on the table to his right was the eight-by-ten of the bludgeoned woman. A photograph left to confirm a murder likely ordered by Bennett and augmented by Wetzel. He thought about Wetzel driving out of his condo building, coasting away in a bubble of privilege.
He typed: “What do you know about the Tesla S?”
A moment later the draft e-mail updated with a single word: “everything.”
31
Strategic Planning Meeting
It was the neckties that got to him.
Small price to pay for proximity to the throne, but still, Doug Wetzel would have given his left nut to wear baggy jeans and a ratty Guster T-shirt from his college days.
Driving home from 1600 Penn, he loosened the knot at his throat and nudged the air-conditioning up another notch. This afternoon’s strategic planning meeting had been unending, the president demanding that the army hold joint military exercises with India near the Chinese border as a response to Sino-Pakistan drills planned for next week. The Joint Chiefs were split and the debate at a low boil, but the president was decisive as always, issuing directives without breaking a sweat or elevating his voice.
When the president spoke, five hundred combined years of experience shut up, leaned in, and took orders.
Police cordons were still in effect, shutting down several blocks east of 14th, so Wetzel shot north up Connecticut and then cut off onto side streets to dodge traffic.
D.C. at night had a particular savage gleam, red taillights piercing through gloom, dingy alleys bookending martini-lounge hustle-bustle. And yet another realm hovered above in an angelic glow, the eye called to uplit white marble monuments, to rounded domes and thrusting peaks, to glowing penthouses floating above streets as dark as puddles. Everything that rose seemed to be mirrored in descent, the reflecting pool and the cool Potomac like portals to an underworld.
Wetzel had read somewhere that Hollywood directors liked to hose down streets to make the asphalt sparkle on film. Washington was like that naturally, a black-ice kind of town — lose focus and you’d slip and break your neck.
Earlier Naomi Templeton had briefed him on the day’s events. She’d hinted around a dead drop at his building, but he didn’t take the bait. He’d endured a stream of direct questions from her as well before shutting her down to get back to the business of governing.
He wasn’t going home now, that much was certain, not after Orphan X had shown up in his lobby. He’d texted Orphan A from the disposable phone, requesting a meet in a dive bar in Tenleytown, a safe distance from the heated center of the city. After he powwowed with Orphan A, he’d return to the White House and sleep soundly in a guest room inside the fortress.
He passed an abandoned auto shop now, its windows boarded up. On the plywood someone had spray-painted I VOTED FOR BENNETT, AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY DEMAGOGUE!
At a red light, Wetzel dialed the disposable phone for the third time in the past ten minutes. This time it rang.
A gruff voice answered, “A.”
“Did you get my text? Where the fuck have you been?”
Orphan A said, “Preparing.”
“We’ve had an incident,” Wetzel told him.
“I saw the news.”
“You think he followed you to my place? You think he’s onto you?”
“‘Onto me’ doesn’t happen. But I’m getting onto him. I called your hook at the DoD, had him run some scenarios for me. That correlative software shit you types are always on about.”
The light changed, and Wetzel accelerated off the line. “Please elaborate.”
“You came to me because I think like him,” Orphan A said. “So. If it was me, I’d set up safely outside the White House surveillance apparatus but close enough to be within striking distance. I’m thinking three to ten klicks out. Short-term condo rental or hotel, Metro and freeway access within a block. If a condo, it’ll have an attached parking garage. If a hotel, he checked in with a rental car. I told your man to put the data in the genie lamp and tell me what comes out.”