O’Malley caught up with Pierce Thompson on the fifth floor. Both were out of breath.
“Where is he?” cried O’Malley.
“What do you mean, where is he? I thought he was with you.”
“No, I lost him on the first floor.”
“Shit, he could be anywhere,” said Thompson. “Whose side does the smart-ass think we are on? Which one of us is going to tell the Director?”
“Not me,” O’Malley said. “You’re the senior officer, you tell him.”
“No way I’m telling him,” Thompson said. “And let that bastard Matson take all the credit — you can be sure he’s still with him. No, we’re going to find him. You take the first four floors and I’ll take the top four. Bleep immediately when you spot him.”
When Mark reached the basement, he stayed in the elevator. The third man walked out and seemed to hesitate. Mark’s thumb was jammed on the Close-button again. The door responded. He was on his own. He tried to make the elevator bypass the ground floor but he couldn’t; someone else wanted to get in. He prayed it was not one of the three men. He had to risk it. The doors opened and he walked out immediately. No agents in sight, no one studying the Medicare poster. He ran toward the revolving doors at the end of the corridor. The guard on duty looked at him suspiciously and fingered the holster of his gun. Through the revolving doors and out into the open, running hard. He glanced around. Everyone was walking, no one was running. He was safe.
Pennsylvania Avenue — he dodged in and out of the traffic amid screeching tires and angry expletives. He reached the parking lot and jumped into his car, fumbling for some change. Why did they make trousers that you couldn’t get your hands into when you sat down? He quickly paid for his ticket and drove toward Georgetown — and Elizabeth. He glanced in the rear-view mirror. No Ford sedan in sight. He’d done it. He was on his own. He smiled. For once he had beaten the Director. He drove past the lights at the corner of Pennsylvania and 14th just as they were changing. He began to relax.
A black Buick ran the lights. Lucky there were no traffic cops around.
When Mark arrived in Georgetown, his nervousness returned, a new nervousness associated with Elizabeth and her world, not with the Director and his world. When he pressed the bell on her front door, he could still hear his heart beating.
Elizabeth appeared. She looked drawn and tired and didn’t speak. He followed her into the living-room.
“Have you recovered from your accident?”
“Yes, thank you. How did you know I’d had an accident?” she asked.
Mark thought quickly. “Called the hospital. They told me there.”
“You’re lying, Mark. I didn’t tell them at the hospital, and I left early after a phone call from my father.”
Mark couldn’t look her in the eyes. He sat down and stared at the rug. “I... I don’t want to lie to you, Elizabeth. Please don’t.”
“Why are you following my father?” she demanded. “He thought you looked familiar when he met you at the Mayflower. You’ve been haunting his committee meetings and you’ve been watching the debates in the Senate.”
Mark didn’t answer.
“Okay, don’t explain. I’m not completely blind. I’ll draw my own conclusions. I’m part of an FBI assignment. My, you’ve been working late hours, haven’t you, Agent Andrews? For a man singled out to work a senators’ daughters’ beat, you’re pretty goddamn inept. Just how many daughters have you seduced this week? Did you get any good dirt? Why don’t you try the wives next? Your boyish charm might be more effective on them. Although, I must confess, you had me fooled, you lying bastard.”
Despite a considerable effort to maintain the icy control with which she had launched her attack, Elizabeth bit her lip. Her voice caught. Mark still couldn’t look at her. He heard the anger and the tears in her voice. In a moment, the chilling frost had covered her emotion again.
“Please leave now, Mark. Now. I’ve said my piece and I hope I never lay eyes on you again. Perhaps then I can recover some of my self-respect. Just go; crawl back into the slime.”
“You’ve misunderstood, Elizabeth.”
“I know, you poor misunderstood agent, and you love me for myself. There’s no other girl in your life,” she said bitterly. “At least not until you’re transferred to a new case. Well, this case has just finished. Go find somebody else’s daughter to seduce with your lies about love.”
He couldn’t blame her for her reaction, and left without another word.
He drove home in a daze. The occupants of the car following him were fully alert. When he arrived, Mark left the car keys with Simon and took the elevator to his apartment.
The black Buick was parked a hundred yards from the building. The two men could see the light in Mark’s apartment. He dialed six of the seven digits of her number, but then he put the phone back on the hook and turned off the light. One of the men in the Buick lit another cigarette, inhaled, and checked his watch.
After months of bargaining, bullying, cajoling and threatening the Gun Control bill was at last to be presented to the House for their final approval.
This was to be the day when Florentyna made an indelible mark on American history. If she achieved nothing else during her term of office she would live to be proud of this single act.
What could prevent it now? she asked for the thousandth time. And for the thousandth time the same dreadful thought flashed across her mind.
She dismissed it once again.
Thursday morning
10 March
5:00 A.M.
The Director woke suddenly. He lay there, frustrated; there was nothing he could do at this hour except look at the ceiling and think, and that didn’t help much. He went over and over in his mind the events of the past six days, always leaving until last the thought of canceling the whole operation, which would probably mean even now that the Senator and his cohorts would get away scot-free. Perhaps they already knew and had disappeared to lick their wounds and prepare for another day. Either way it would remain his problem.
The Senator woke at 5:35 in a cold sweat — not that he had really slept for more than a few minutes at any one time. It had been an evil night, thunder and lightning and sirens. It was the sirens that had made him sweat. He was even more nervous than he had expected to be; in fact just after he heard three chime he had nearly dialed the Chairman to say that he couldn’t go through with it, despite the consequences that the Chairman had so delicately, but so frequently, adumbrated. But the vision of President Kane dead beside him reminded the Senator that everybody even now could remember exactly where he was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and he himself was never going to be able to forget where he was when Florentyna Kane died. Even that seemed less appalling than the thought of his own name in the headlines, his public image irreparably damaged, and his career ruined. Even so, he nearly called the Chairman, as much for reassurance as anything, despite their agreement that they had contacted each other for the last time until late the following morning, when the Chairman would be in Miami.
Five men had already died and that had caused only a ripple: President Kane’s death would reverberate around the world.
The Senator stared out of the window for some time, focusing on nothing, then turned away. He kept looking at his watch, wishing he could stop time. The second hand moved relentlessly — relentlessly towards 10:56. He busied himself with breakfast and the morning paper. The Post informed him that many buildings had caught fire during the night in one of the worst storms in Washington’s history, and the Lubber Run in Virginia had overflowed its banks, causing heavy property damage. There was little mention of President Kane. He wished he could read tomorrow’s papers today.