"His name is Burke Hill," Stern began. He told where Hill worked and lived, described his two kids, detailed his wife's business, explained about the fake trip out of Dulles and advised that he was probably hiding out somewhere in the area. "Watch your step. He's an ex-FBI agent and his wife is a former CIA officer."
"Hey, that makes it more interesting. Got a picture?"
"You can pick it up at the gun shop after nine." It was a drop-off point in Alexandria they had used previously. The envelope would bear the name "Max."
Stern's request touched off a flurry of calls around the Washington area during the next two hours. Compiling Hill's dossier, as the more sophisticated might call it, was not overly difficult. Living in the world's most open society, populated primarily by candid, friendly, trusting people, Americans would readily divulge some of their innermost secrets to perfect strangers, if properly approached. Anyone with a credit card, a checking account, an automobile, a telephone, a direct mail purchase, to name a few, left an amazing trail of facts in computers across the country. All of it was available to those with the equipment, the know-how and the entree to the data bases. One of the calls Max placed was to an information wizard named Murray Bender. As usual, he had to leave his number on the answering machine.
Washington, D.C. held a particular fascination for Americans of all ages, from the lowly to the illustrious. Despite the city's troubled recent past, its struggles with disaffected minorities, with drugs and crime, people across the country held it in a certain reverence. The sight of Old Glory snapping in the breeze above a magnificent gilded dome stirred a sense of patriotism in even the most hardened cynic. On Monday, July third, eve of the holiday that annually rekindled the nation's pride in its freedom and independence, tourists by the thousands invaded the capital's historic areas, armed to the teeth with photographic gear of every description. They poked and pointed and peered through an astonishing variety of lenses at the venerable sights so familiar to patriots from Maine to California.
As the morning rush hour ended and workers who hadn't managed an extra day off began business as usual, a different kind of lens was aimed along Maryland Avenue near Sixth Street, a couple of blocks removed from the throngs of camera-toting visitors. What appeared to be a surveyor's transit was set up in the street behind the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Building, just in front of a blue minivan with the markings of "Capitol Surveys" on the side. Actually the transit-looking device was called an aiming circle elbow telescope, a piece of military hardware used for the orientation of indirect fire weapons. The "surveyor" was Nikolai Romashchuk, his assistant the Peruvian called Pepe.
It took less than thirty minutes for the Major to complete his work, which included spray-painting two green X's on the pavement where the telescope sat. Then he drove back to Advanced Security Systems, where a sign posted on the front door gave notice that the company was "Closed for Holidays." The employees had been given a long weekend off. It was not that Haskell Feldhaus was all that generous. The closure had been planned to give Romashchuk and his crew the opportunity to work unobserved and unhindered. A small group of employees with special talents had been instructed to stand by at home for a possible special assignment.
Besides the English requirement, the Major had requested that El Sendero Luminoso provide him with two men who were experienced drivers and one a qualified welder. Now he supervised the South American welder in securing three model 1937 Soviet 82mm mortars to the bed of the yellow dump truck. Using the information he had obtained at the Maryland Avenue site, which lay exactly 800 meters from the target, the Major positioned the bipod assemblies and baseplates to allow for the precise setting of azimuth and elevation on the weapons. They would be leveled when in place by reducing or increasing air pressure in the truck tires. He had firing tables that gave the proper propellant charge for the desired trajectory.
Romashchuk was familiar with IRA mortar attacks on British installations in Northern Ireland. They had used crude homemade devices with little reliability, strictly hit or miss, mostly miss. He was satisfied that his arrangement would produce direct hits. It was the real thing. Real Soviet mortars and production line shells, each round filled with five kilograms of a highly lethal nerve agent. He had been assured that only enough to cover the head of a pin was required to kill a person. When the shells exploded on impact, the nerve agent would be dispersed in a fine mist that would spread quickly with no more than a gentle breeze. Members of his team always used gloves to handle the weapons, but he carried syringes of atropine, a nerve gas antidote, in case of accidental exposure.
After lunch he went to work on the blue minivan, which also required some modest modification. First he removed the Capital Surveys sign. He cut a hole through the floor about three feet from the rear, then attached a large pipe resembling an oversize tailpipe alongside the exhaust. He extended it up through the opening in the floor with a ninety-degree fitting. Using a similar fitting, he curved it toward the front, where he attached a section of plastic outlet tube from a gas-powered blower, the kind used in suburbia to clean leaves from patios and driveways. Before inserting the other section of outlet tube, which was bolted to the blower itself, he installed an attachment with a large plastic canister that would permit blowing of solid material such as insulation.
After securing the blower to the floor of the minivan with heavy strap iron, Romashchuk reinforced all of the joints with duct tape. Then he looked out the sliding door at the brown-skinned Peruvians who had been watching in silence.
"Shall we give it a try?" he asked in Spanish.
They looked around at each other. It was Pepe who replied with a nod. "Let's hope it works."
"Hand me that sack of flour," Romashchuk instructed, pointing to a pile of odds and ends and leftover materials on the shop floor.
Taking the sack, he removed the plastic canister, poured in the flour, then re-attached it. He started the van and backed out into the storage yard. There was a slight breeze blowing away from the building. Perfect. He moved into the back of the van and tugged on the starter cord. The small engine roared to life and began to buzz with the unique popping sound made by gasoline blowers and trimmers.
Romashchuk yelled out the open window, "Test commencing!"
He depressed a trigger-like lever and a cloud of white dust began to pour out behind the van. It drifted toward the rear of the lot like a morning fog settling in a valley. Romashchuk released the trigger and smiled.
"Everything is ready. Two of you will ride in here, three in the dump truck."
In Alexandria, a pleasant looking, well-dressed young man knocked on the door just as Lila Rodman was about to leave for the grocery to pick up a few items for the picnic lunch tomorrow. She opened it and smiled through the screen that covered the top portion of the black wrought iron security door.
"I'm looking for Mrs. Karen Rodman," said the man, a bit wide-eyed, obviously struck by the smiling young beauty.
"I'm sorry, she's already gone to the shop." Seeing the uncertain expression on his face, Lila added, "She and a friend are opening a dress shop day after tomorrow."
He nodded. "Are you her daughter?"
"Yes. I'm Lila Rodman."
"Special Agent Hugh Nivens, FBI," he said, holding out his ID. "Could I talk with you for a minute?"
She smiled. "Go right ahead, Mr. Nivens. My mother said don't let any strange men in the house. She didn't say I shouldn't talk to them through the screen door."
He shrugged. "Has your father been here in the last few days?"