Mark had managed to edge himself into the center 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 overlooked.
“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 men, 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 their crimes enacted.
“Let’s go over it once again, Andrews. The President leaves the south entrance of the White House at 10:00 A.M. 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 offense 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 toward the telephone booths. He had to call her, he had to find out how she was after her accident. He dialed Woodrow Wilson.
“Oh, she left the hospital — some time ago.”
“Thank you,” said Mark. He could feel his heart beat as he dialed 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 toward 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 toward 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 toward 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.