His enemy’s defenses were down. He thought of an apt metaphor: They believed the concert was over; they never suspected he’d arranged a spectacular, unexpected crescendo.
Faust now slipped out of the basement, troubled as he pictured Felicia Kaminski dying in the conflagration. He wasn’t concerned about the young women herself, of course. He was troubled that, if she used the original score to perform from, the manuscript would be destroyed.
After all, it was easily worth millions of dollars.
The crowds began assembling outside early, the queue stretching well past a construction site next door to the James Madison hall. Many were people without tickets, hoping for scalpers. But this was a world-premiere of Chopin, not pre-season Redskins, so there were no tickets to be had.
Harold Middleton made a brief backstage visit to Kaminski, wished her well and then joined his guests in the lobby: Leonora Tesla, J.M. Lespasse and his daughter Charley.
He said hello to some of the music professors from Georgetown and George Mason, and a few of the Defense Department and DOJ folks from his past life. Emmett Kalmbach came by and shook his hand. “Where’s Dick?” he asked.
Middleton gave a laugh and pointed across the hall to the head of Homeland Security. “Gave his ticket to his boss.”
The FBI man said, “At least I appreciate culture.”
“You ever heard Chopin before, Emmett?”
“Sure.”
“What’d he write?”
“That thing.”
“Thing?”
“You know, the famous one.”
Middleton smiled as Kalmbach changed the subject.
The lobby lights dimmed and they entered the auditorium, found their seats.
“Harry, relax” Middleton heard his daughter say. “You look like you’re the one performing.”
He smiled, noting how she referred to him. The lack of endearment didn’t upset him one bit; it was sign she was recovering.
But as for relaxing: Well, that wasn’t going to happen. This was going to be a momentous evening. He was bursting with excitement.
The conductor walked out on stage to wild applause. He then lifted his arm to the right and nineteen-year-old Felicia Kaminski, in a fluid black dress, strode out on stage, looking confident as a pro. She smiled, bowed and stole a glance at Harold Middleton. He believed she winked. She sat down at the keyboard.
The conductor took his place at the stand. He lifted his baton.
“Dick, something interesting here.”
Chambers was in his office at the Department of Homeland Security, working late. He was thinking about the concert and wondering if his boss was appreciative he’d been given the ticket. He looked up.
“Might want to talk to this guy,” his straight-arrow aide said.
The caller was a restaurant worker near the James Madison recital hall. As he was leaving work early that morning, he explained, he’d seen a man leave through the hall’s side door. He’d gotten into a car near the site. Thinking it seemed suspicious — the hall had been closed all day — he took a picture of the car and the license plate with his cell phone. He meant to call the police earlier but had forgotten about it. He’d just now called D.C. police and was referred to Homeland Security, since the concert would be attended by some high-ranking government officials.
“Nowadays,” the restaurant worker said, “you never know — terrorists and everything.”
Chambers said, “We better follow up on this. Where are you?”
He’d just gotten off work, the man explained. He gave the address of the restaurant. It was now closed so Chambers told him to wait in a park near the place. He’d have agents there soon.
“And thank you, sir. It’s citizens like you that make this country what it is.”
On stage at the recital hall, Felicia Kaminski was playing as she’d never played in her life. She was motivated not by the fact that this was her first appearance as a soloist at a world premiere, but because of the music itself. It was intoxicating.
Musicians grow familiar with the pieces in their repertoire, the same way husbands and wives grow comfortably close over the years. But there’s something about meeting, then performing, a new work that’s like the beginning of a love affair.
Passionate, exhilarating, utterly captivating. The rest of the word ceases to exist.
She was now lost in the music completely, unaware of the thousand people in the audience, the lights, the distinguished guests, the other members of the chamber orchestra around her.
Only one thing intruded slightly.
The faint smell of smoke.
But then she came to a tricky passage in the Chopin and, concentrating hard, she lost any awareness of the scent.
A dark sedan pulled up fast, near a small park in Northwest D.C., where a middle-aged man in food-stained overalls sat on a park bench, looking around like a nervous bird.
He flinched when the car stopped and only after spotting the plate Official Government Use and the letters on the side, DHS, did he rise. He walked to the man who got out of the car.
“I’m Joe. From the diner,” he said. “I called.”
“I’m Dick Chambers.” They shook hands.
“Please, sir,” the worker said. He held up his cell phone. “I have the picture of the license plate. It’s hard to read but I’m sure you have computers that can make it, you know, clearer.”
“Yes, our technical department can work miracles.”
A man climbed from the car. He called, “Dick, just heard a CNN report on the radio! A fire in the recital hall. It looks big. Real big!”
Dick Chambers smiled, then turned to the man who had just shouted to him from the car.
It was Faust.His two thugs stepped out of back of the car and joined him.
“There, he’s the man I saw,” cried the agitated restaurant worker. “You have arrested him!”
But then he shook his head, seeing that Faust’s hands weren’t cuffed. “No, no, no.” He dropped the cell phone, staring at Chambers. “You’re part of it! I am dead!”
Yeah, you pretty much are, the Homeland Security man thought.
Chambers asked Faust, “What’s going on at the hall?”
“They are just preliminary reports. No one can see anything. The streets are filled with smoke. Fire trucks everywhere.”
“The recital hall! You’ve blown it up?”
He crushed the restaurant worker’s cell phone under his heel. “I’m afraid you were at the wrong place at the wrong time.” He then glanced at Faust, who pulled out a silenced pistol and began to aim it at the worker.
“Please, sir. No!”
Which is when the spotlights slammed on, fixing Chambers, Faust and the others in searing glare.
The restaurant worker dropped to the grass and scuttled away as a loudspeaker blared, “This is Emmett Kalmbach, Chambers. We’ve got snipers and they’re green lighted to shoot. On the ground. All of you.”
The DHS man blinked in shock but he hesitated only a moment. He’d been in this business a long time. He was four pounds of trigger pressure away from dead, and he knew it. He grimaced, dropped to his belly and stretched out his legs and arms. The two thugs did the same.
Faust, though, hesitated, the gun bobbing slowly in his hand.