He eased himself around so he could examine the sleeping bag where he lay. A little blood, but not much. That was good. Very good. The bleeding had stopped.
The best thing would be to lie still for a few days until that bullet hole began to heal, but of course that was impossible.
In spite of the pain he was hungry. He tried to order his thoughts and prioritize what he needed to do. He seemed to be mentally alert. That was also good and cheered him.
First he needed to administer a local anesthetic. He got out the first-aid kit and opened it. He could use his left hand if he didn’t move his shoulder too much. The pain radiated that far.
It took three or four minutes, but he got a hypodermic filled and proceeded to inject himself in four places, above, below, and to the right and left of the wound. The contortions required caused him to break into a sweat and bite his lip, but the effect of the drug was immediate. The pain eased to a dull ache.
The roof of the old cellar was just high enough to let him stand, so he eased himself upright and stood swaying while his blood pressure and heart rate adjusted. He took a few experimental steps. He ground his teeth together.
He relieved himself into a bucket in the corner. He examined the urine flow carefully. Not even pink. No blood at all.
Food. And water. He needed both to replace the lost blood.
He rigged the Sterno can and lit it and opened a can of stew. While it was heating he munched on some beef jerky and drank deeply from the water can.
Still waiting for the stew to heat, he stripped off the clothes he was wearing. He pulled on dry trousers, but he left the shirt off. In a little while he was going to have to change this bandage. The wet clothes he hung on a convenient nail.
There! He felt better already.
After he had eaten the stew, he opened a can of fruit cocktail and consumed that. He finished it by drinking the last of the juice, then another pint of water.
Pleasantly full, Henry Charon lay back down on the sleeping bag. For the first time he looked at his watch. Almost twelve o’clock. Noon or midnight, he didn’t know. But he couldn’t have slept all day, clear through until midnight.
He pulled the radio over and turned it on. In a few minutes he had the television audio.
Noon. It was almost noon. He had slept for about eight hours.
He turned off the lantern to save the battery and lay in the darkness listening to the radio. He had the volume turned down so low it was just barely audible. He didn’t want anyone passing in the subway tunnel outside to hear it — but that was unlikely. With the military in charge of the city all work on the tunnels had stopped.
So he lay there in the darkness half listening to television audio on the radio and thinking about last night. He had heard that officer on the road talking to the soldier who shot him as he climbed the ridge away from them. Really, that had been a stroke of terrible luck. Shot crossing a road! He had damn near ended up a road kill, like some rabbit or stray dog smashed flat on the asphalt.
He sighed and closed his eyes, trying to forget the dull pain in his back.
Any way you looked at it, this had been the best hunt of his life. Far and away the best. Even last night when the soldiers were chasing him and he was hurting so badly — that had been a rare experience, something to be savored. He had been out there on the edge of life, living it to the hilt, making it on his own strength and wits and determination. Sublime. That was the word. Sublime. Nothing he had ever done in his entire life up to this point could match it. Everything up to now had been merely preparation for last night; for slipping down through the forest between the soldiers, for going up that ridge wounded and bleeding and digging like hell, for throwing himself down in the street and rolling clear with the bullets flaying the air over his head, then running and scheming and doubling back occasionally to throw off possible pursuers.
Most men live a lifetime and never have even one good hunt. He had had so many. And to top it off with last night!
He was going back through it again, thinking through each impression, reliving the emotions, when he heard his name on the radio. He fumbled with it and got the volume up.
“… has been tentatively identified as a New Mexico rancher and firearms expert. This man is armed and extremely dangerous. He is believed to have been wounded last night by troops in the District of Columbia as they tried to apprehend him. If you see this man, please, we urge you, do not attempt to approach him or apprehend him yourself. Just call the number on the screen and tell the authorities your name and address, and where and when you believe you saw him.
“Why Henry Charon apparently undertook to assassinate the President and Vice-president is not known at this time. We hope to have more for you from New Mexico on Charon’s background later this afternoon. Stay tuned to this station.”
Charon snapped off the radio. He lay in the darkness with his eyes open.
Not fingerprints. His prints were not on file anyplace. If they had his prints they had nothing. It must have been the drawing. Someone in New Mexico must have recognized it and called the police.
That conclusion reached, he dismissed the whole matter and began again to examine the events of last night in minute detail. After all, there was nothing he could do about what the police and FBI knew. If they knew, they knew.
Deep down Henry Charon had never really expected to make a clean escape. He knew the odds were too great. He had signed on for the hunt and it had been superb, exceeding his wildest expectations.
As the bullets had ripped over his head and the roar of the M-16 shattered the night, he had learned for the very first time the extraordinary thrill of coming face to face with death and escaping out the other side. The experience could not be explained — it defied words. So he lay here in the darkness savoring every morsel of it.
Eventually he would turn to the problem of what to do next, but not right now.
“These goddamn terrorists are in the District. You know it, I know it, everybody knows it. The question is what are they going to do next?”
Major General Greer stood with Jake Grafton looking at the map of the city that took up most of a wall. Greer was a stocky man, deeply tanned, with short iron-gray hair that stood straight up all over his head. He had made up his mind to be a soldier when he was nine years old and had seen no reason to change that decision from that day to this.
He glanced at Grafton. He expected a response when he asked questions aloud.
“They can wait for us to find them, sir,” Jake Grafton said, “and shoot it out right there.”
“That’s option one,” Greer said, nodding. This thinking aloud was a habit with him, one his staff was used to. Jake was catching on fast. Over in the corner, Grafton noticed, Jack Yocke was taking notes.
“Or they can select a target and hit it. Or two targets. Possibly three depending on how many and how well armed they are.”
“Option two.”
“They can hope we don’t find them and give up the search.”
“Three. Any more?”
“Not that I can think of.”
“Me either. I like number two the best. That’s the one I’d pick if I were them. I suspect a bunch of civilians paid to get killed won’t do well just sitting and waiting.”
Greer sighed. “As if we knew. Anyway, if they take option two, what will be their target?”
Jake let his eyes roam across the map. “The White House,” he suggested tentatively.
“I have two companies of troops and ten tanks at Bethesda Naval Hospital. One company of troops around the White House and four tanks sitting there, one on each corner. Another company with tanks at the old Executive Office Building. Same thing at the Naval Observatory, where the Vice-President lives. Also at the Capitol on the off chance they’d hit that again, and at the Senate and House office buildings. What else?”