When they met the crowd swarming down Maryland Avenue from the Capitol lawn, some with umbrellas, most without, it was obvious from the laughter and weather jokes that these people were totally unaware of any terrorism at the concert.
"Maybe the shell missed," Roddy said. "Maybe it didn't detonate."
"I know where Walt Brackin parks," Burke said. "It isn't far from here. Maybe we can find them."
By the time they reached Walt's parking spot, a new chorus of sirens had begun to echo through the soggy night air. Burke felt a wave of relief when he saw his family approaching at a trot. Walt carried Cam, Chloe held Liz and Lori toted a large diaper bag and a folded stroller. Burke clutched his daughter as Chloe turned to look at Rodman's bloody arm.
"What happened?" she asked with a puzzled frown.
"I caught a stray bullet." Roddy was more worried about Karen and the girls than his own wound. "Did you see an explosion about the time of the last cannon shots?"
"Explosion? No."
He knew Lila would have made them arrive early to get as close as possible to the stage. If the Brackins hadn't seen the shell detonate, hopefully they were safe.
Chloe had her doctor's bag in the trunk. As she began a temporary patch job on Roddy's arm, Burke explained quickly what had happened. Walt switched on the radio and got a half-hysterical reporter who had been no more than two hundred feet from where the shell impacted. He wasn't aware that it had been a mortar round, however. A state of mass confusion existed. A few military personnel at the concert had recognized the nerve gas symptoms and tried to warn people away. No one had any idea where the gas had come from, though police assumed it was connected with the as-yet-unidentified chemical that had created havoc around the Washington Monument. Fragmentary reports indicated casualties numbered around fifty. Police had blocked off streets north of the Capitol, where people on the sidewalks had been overcome by the gas. Several drivers of vehicles with open windows had suffered seizures and crashed into lamp posts or building fronts. The rain had become a steady shower, adding to the havoc in the streets but providentially washing what remained of the nerve agent droplets into the sewer system.
When Chloe had finished with his arm, immobilizing it with a sling, Roddy looked across at Burke. "Do you want to go with me to the Presidential Plaza?"
Burke had been thinking about the same thing. "Absolutely," he said. "Walt, think you could get us over to the Plaza?" It was only a few blocks away, and the bulk of the traffic appeared headed in the opposite direction.
"I think so. What's over there?"
Lori's eyes flashed. "Burke Hill! You aren't going looking for Adam Stern?"
"The bastard's got to answer for this," Burke said, his jaw taut.
"Watch your language around the kids," she scolded, though both of them were asleep beside her in the back seat of the Brackin's Lincoln. "You aren't his judge or his jury or his executioner."
"The way he set this up, with the evidence all neatly erased, we're probably the only court he'll ever face. I don't intend to let him get away with it."
Lori shook her head. "Don't do something stupid, Burke. Don't ruin the lives of these two children."
He understood what she meant. During the Jabberwock affair and Operation Hangover, he had killed men in self-defense. But to give Stern the punishment he deserved, it would be murder. There was one point, however, that Lori didn't understand.
"Do you want to give up your business, change your name, take the kids, run and hide in some obscure, far-off spot?" he asked. "Adam Stern knows that Roddy and I are the only people left with first-hand knowledge of who is really responsible for what happened tonight. He killed the writer in Guadalajara. His henchman, Romashchuk, killed the woman Roddy knew and blew up the truck with the Mexican who had helped him. He killed Yuri and I'm sure he was responsible for destroying the minivan with the Peruvians. I'm equally sure Stern sent in that cleanup crew that carted off everything but the pavement from Maryland Avenue. He won't feel safe as long as we're alive."
If there was one thing Lori Hill could not countenance, in either her business or personal life, it was intimidation. When some larger travel firms had attempted to thwart her expansion plans with threats of cut-throat tactics, she had met them head-on. But this was different. If Burke was right, it could impact the children as well. Even so, she was not prepared to knuckle under to intimidation from Adam Stern or his Foreign Affairs Roundtable masters.
"With what you have on him, there has to be a better way, Burke," she said.
They discussed the possibilities as Walt drove on to the Capital Plaza Hotel.
77
Extra security people were on duty at the hotel, carefully screening everyone who came through the entrance. Roddy's sling drew close scrutiny, but since neither he nor Burke looked Latin, they were not detained. Burke stopped at a beverage shop off the lobby, then used a house phone to call Room 333.
"Hello," snapped a curt Adam Stern. He obviously was not in a pleasant mood.
Burke disguised his voice. "This is Room Service, Mr. Stern. We're sending up a bottle of champagne that was ordered for you. There's a gift card with it. Just wanted to be sure you were in."
A few minutes later, he stood in front of Room 333 and knocked. He held the champagne in front to hide his face. Roddy stood to the side, out of view of the peephole.
The door opened and Stern stepped into the doorway, glancing at Burke, then looking around to see Rodman against the wall. He reached behind his back and produced a semiautomatic pistol, with which he waved to the pair in the hallway.
"Inside."
Burke walked in and sat the bottle on a table. "If this is the way you treat all your guests, you must lead a pretty lonely life."
"I only use this on visitors who lie and come to me under false colors." Stern closed the door. "Up against the wall. You know the drill."
"We aren't armed," Burke said, but they placed their hands against the wall while Stern patted them down.
They were in the parlor of a suite, which also included a small wet bar and refrigerator, a large TV tuned to the news and a wooden table with four chairs. Stern waved the gun at the sofa.
"Sit," he ordered. He aimed the remote at the TV and turned up the sound, then perched on the corner of the table, placing them between him and the television. He kept the gun pointed at their backs. "Let's watch this a moment. It should be instructive."
The camera showed bodies sprawled grotesquely along the edge of the Capitol lawn as a newsman's voice reported dramatically, "Scores of concert-goers died tonight on the Capitol lawn near Constitution Avenue, apparently victims of a terrorist bomb that showered the area with droplets of a deadly nerve agent. The compound, designed for use in chemical warfare, is believed to have been set off by members of The Shining Path, a Maoist-oriented Peruvian guerrilla group. A caller to the American Embassy in Lima claimed the group was responsible."
The scene shifted to a harried nurse in an emergency room, a mask dangling around her neck, as the reporter continued. "Police are inclined to agree, considering what happened around the Washington Monument a short time before the Capitol attack."
The back of one hand brushed an errant lock of blonde hair out of the nurse's perspiring face. "We've had a steady stream of people who have absolutely gone bonkers," she said. "They're in a state of wide-eyed panic. They're apt to take weird, completely irrational actions. Like suddenly stripping off their clothes."
The scene switched to an ambulance being unloaded. The victim on the stretcher was completely immobilized with straps tightly cinched about his body. "They're getting sedatives, tranquilizers, whatever will calm them down," said a paramedic. "It's really a jungle out there."