“And you, ma’am?” Jake said to the other woman, who was younger than Mrs. Hannifan but not dressed as well.
“It’s my boy. He shot at some people. I saw the soldiers take him away.”
Jake was tempted to refuse. But he hesitated. “How far did you come?”
“From Emerson and Georgia Avenue. I don’t know how far it is.”
“Five or six miles,” the sergeant said. “Through all that rioting.”
Jake nodded at the captain.
“And you, sir?”
“My name’s Liarakos. I’d like to see my wife. The sergeant says she’s been detained for drug possession.”
“You mean you want her released?”
“No.” Liarakos spoke forcefully. “I want to see her first. Then, maybe, but …” His voice trailed off.
Jake turned to the captain and said, “Bring those men to my office. And take this gentleman back to visit his wife.” He asked the women to accompany him.
Back in his office with everyone seated, he sent Toad for coffee. Jack Yocke sat silently at the other desk.
The younger woman began to sob. Her name was Fulbright. “I know it’s not your fault,” she said, “but it’s more than a body can stand, what with the drugs and the unemployment and the schools that don’t teach them nothing. How can they grow up to be men living in this? I ask you.”
“I don’t know.”
The silence grew uncomfortable as Mrs. Fulbright sobbed. Jake could think of nothing to say, and once he shot a glance at Yocke, hoping he would help. The reporter returned his look impassively and said nothing.
Toad brought the coffee just seconds before two soldiers escorted the men into the room in handcuffs. Men? They were just boys.
“You kids are leaving,” Jake said, “because these women cared enough about you to risk their lives walking over here. You may not have much money, but you got something a lot of folks will never have — people that love you.”
Both the youngsters looked uncomfortable, embarrassed. Ah, what’s the use? Jake wondered. But maybe, just maybe … “Toad, when these ladies finish their coffee, drive these people home.”
“My God, Thanos, why did you come?”
“I—”
She held up a hand so he couldn’t see her face. He pulled her hand away. She was crying.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she whispered. “Oh, my God, Thanos, look what I’ve done to myself.”
The room they had her in held five other women. It stank of vomit and urine. A half dozen bare mattresses lay scattered on the floor, but there was no other furniture. Elizabeth sat huddled on a mattress. Her clothes were filthy.
“I’m sorry, Thanos. I’m sorry.”
“That’s the first step on the road back, Elizabeth.”
“I feel so dirty. So degraded! And I’ve crawled into this sewer all by myself. How can you even look at—”
“You want to go home? Without the dope?”
“I don’t know if I can! But why would you — don’t you know what I’ve done? Don’t you know why I’m here?”
“I know.”
She tore her hand from his grasp and held it in front of her face. “Please leave, for the love of—”
Liarakos rose and pounded on the door.
“Sir, I’d like to take my wife home.”
Liarakos stood in front of Grafton’s desk. Jake Grafton forced himself to look up into the man’s face. “Fine,” he said. “Where do you live?”
“Edgemoor.”
“Isn’t that over on the other side of Rock Creek Park?”
“Yes.”
“Jack, go catch Toad. Tell him he’ll have two more passengers. Go with him, Mr. Liarakos.”
Liarakos turned to go, then looked back. “Thanks, I—”
Jake waved him out.
In ten minutes Yocke was back. “They all left with Toad,” he said and sat down in the chair in front of Jake’s desk. “Do you know who that man was?”
“Lee-something. I’ve forgotten.”
“Thanos Liarakos. He’s the lawyer representing Chano Aldana.”
“Everybody has their troubles,” Jake Grafton said, his eyes back on his report. The skin on his face was taut across the bones. His eyes looked like they were recessed even deeper into their sockets.
“You knew that when you first saw him, didn’t you?”
“You’re worse than Tarkington. Go find something to do someplace else, will you?”
Yocke rose uncertainly. He wandered aimlessly for several seconds, went out the door and down the hall, then out to the desk in the bay where the soldiers were checking in the prisoners. He waited until the sergeant finished logging in two more surly prisoners, then asked, “Mrs. Liarakos. Who was the man arrested with her?”
“Ah, I’ve got it here.” The sergeant flipped through his book, a green, hardbound logbook. He found the entry. “Guy who refused to give his name. Stuff in his wallet says he is one T. Jefferson Brody, a lawyer if you can believe that. Three hours ago. He’s in bay four if you want to talk to him.” The sergeant gestured vaguely to his left.
Some of the prisoners were still drunk and belligerent. They shouted and raved obscenities. The smell of urine and body odor made the air heavy and lifeless. Yocke tried to breathe shallowly.
He looked into bay four, a waist-high enclosure with a stained concrete floor normally used for the repair of vehicles. The bay now held several dozen men who were shackled in place. Immediately across the corridor was another bay which contained women. The women sat with their backs to the men.
Yocke didn’t recognize Brody. Dressed in a filthy blue suit, the lawyer was standing and straining against the chain around his wrist, screaming at the top of his lungs at the women’s area. “You fucking cunt! I’ll rip your fucking liver out with my bare hands. We won’t be in here forever, you fucking bitch. Then you wait! I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I ever do!”
One of the soldiers walked over with a look of disgust on his face. “Hey you! Big mouth! I’m telling you for the very last time. Shut up!”
“That fucking cunt robbed me,” Brody howled. “I’ll—”
“Shut up, butt-face, or we’ll gag you. You hear me!”
Brody fell silent. He stared fixedly across at the women’s holding area. After a moment he sat down, but his gaze never wavered.
Jack Yocke turned away, slightly nauseated. Hell couldn’t be any worse than this, he told himself, and shivered.
The first bomb exploded at six-thirty p.m. A truck packed with five tons of dynamite was driven through the fence at a huge electrical transmission substation on Greenleaf Point, near the mouth of the Anacostia River. The driver ran back through the hole in the wire as two soldiers chased him and fired their rifles. The driver disappeared into the low-income housing projects nearby. The soldiers were going back through the fence to examine the truck when its cargo detonated in a stupendous blast that was felt and heard for miles. The electrical substation was instantly obliterated. The lights went out in downtown and southeast Washington.
In the next fifteen minutes three more substations were attacked, effectively depriving the entire city of electricity.
“At least the damned TV stations are off the air,” Toad Tarkington told Rita Moravia, who had just arrived at the armory on the back of an army truck.
While General Greer was responding to these attacks, a major natural-gas pumping station in Arlington was bombed. The explosion resembled a small nuclear blast. Then the place caught fire. In the darkness that fell on the city when the lights went out the glare of the raging inferno could be seen from rooftops all over the city.
At the same time the explosions were racking the city, an army platoon was ambushed and wiped out on the Capital Beltway by twenty men carrying automatic weapons. Three men in uniform waved the truck to a halt, then shot the driver and sergeant as they emerged from the cab. Some of the men were machine-gunned as they exited the back of the truck. A dozen survivors, trapped in the truck bed and unable to see out, threw out their weapons and surrendered. They were led down into the drainage ditch beside the freeway and shot. The weapons, ammunition, and radios were collected and loaded into the truck.