Mike went through into the living room, and then his bedroom, as fast as his cast would let him. (It was still itching, but nearly ready to come off; give it two weeks, said the doctor he’d seen the week before.) He collected his jacket and a small go-bag from under the bed, which held (among other things) a gun, a couple of fully charged and never-used cell phones, and a handwritten paper address book. “Who first?” he asked the air as he headed for the front door. I could try the colonel again, he thought dismally. Or . . . Agent Herz. She might go for it. But whether she’d listen to him was another matter: They’ll put the word out on me within an hour. That left the usual channels—he could go talk to the FBI or his former boss at the DEA field office in town, but again: They’ll think I’m crazier than a fruitbat once Dr. James gets through with my rep. He opened the front door.
I’m going to have to go to the press, he thought, and raised the remote on his car key chain, and had already begun to press the button just as a second thought crystallized in his mind: James is an old hand. What if he’s playing by the pre-Church Commission rules—
In the aftermath of the explosion, every car alarm within three blocks began to sound, accompanied by a chorus of panicking dogs and, soon enough, the rising and falling of sirens; but they were too late.
And two hours and fourteen minutes later, in a locked storeroom on the top floor of a department store on Pennsylvania Avenue, a timer counted down to zero. . . .