The pot was in that little office across the hall. Quickly now!
Ford eased open the door, checked that the desk man was not in sight, then popped through and pushed the door shut behind him. He strode across the carpeted lobby and went through the outside door, closing it behind him.
He dropped behind the first bush he came to and looked around. Beyond this little driveway was the parking lot with the mercury-vapor lights shining down upon it.
Using the trees and shrubs for cover, he circled it as fast as he could trot, pausing and crouching several times behind large bushes for a careful scan.
He reached the vantage point he wanted, with all the cars between him and the entrance to the stairwell that Tony Anselmo had used. Crouching, staying low, he moved carefully parallel to the last row of cars with the 9-mm automatic in his hand.
Up there, on the second row. Wasn’t that a head in that dark green car? Hard to tell. Perhaps a seat-back headrest. He moved slowly alongside a car, keeping it between him and the green sedan.
It took fifteen seconds to get to a place where he could look again.
Yes. A man. Apparently white.
He moved slowly now, going behind a line of cars, working closer.
He also checked the other cars. There might be someone else out here.
The door to the green sedan opened. Ford realized it when the interior courtesy light came on.
Then it went off. The man was standing beside the car.
On his hands and knees, Ford crept across the back of the last car in this row, the third one, and looked forward. The green sedan was in the second row, and the man was standing beside the driver’s door, about forty feet from where Ford was hunkered. He was doing something. A weapon. He was stuffing shells into a shotgun.
Ford heard the distinctive metallic snick as the man worked the action, chambering a round. He turned his back to Ford and started toward the stairwell door.
Harrison Ronald Ford rose into a crouch, braced his hand against the side of the car, and steadied the automatic. The damn thing had no sights.
He quickly aligned the silencer and squeezed off a round.
The man staggered, tried to turn. Ford squeezed again. Another pop. And another.
The man went down. The shotgun clattered as he hit the asphalt.
Ford ran to his right, all hunched over, down about five cars, then charged across the driving lane into the second row. Alongside a car he threw himself on his face and looked under the parked vehicles. He could see a dark shape on the asphalt, obviously not a tire.
Harrison Ronald Ford leveled the automatic with both hands, trying in the gloom to sight along the rounded top of the silencer.
Shit! This is crazy! He could not see well enough to really aim, even if he had had sights.
He lay there breathing rapidly, staring across the top of the weapon at the dark shape five cars over. The seconds ticked by.
He was going to have to do something.
If he went back to the spot that he had fired from, the man would have a clean shot between the cars at him. If he went along the first row, the same thing would eventually occur.
If the guy were still alive and conscious, that is.
Harrison Ronald wiped the sweat from his face with a sleeve.
Fuck!
He was sure as hell going to have to do something.
He got to his feet and rounded the front of the car he had been lying beside. The green sedan was plainly visible. Moving carefully, silently — he was wearing rubber-soled running shoes — he went toward it with the pistol grasped tightly with both hands, the safety off.
Kneeling on the asphalt, Ford tried again to see the fallen man between the tires. He saw a piece of him the second time, apparently still in the same place and position.
He rounded the front of the green car with the pistol ready and fired the instant it covered the man sprawled there on his side beside the front tire.
He needn’t have bothered. Vinnie Pioche was already dead.
When Jake Grafton left the Pentagon, Callie was waiting out front in the car. The buses and subways didn’t run at these hours of the night. Jake climbed in and sighed. “I called home. Amy said you were here. How long have you been waiting?”
“Two hours.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Jake,” Callie said as they hugged each other. “I was so worried about you today. Amy called me at school. She was distraught, almost hysterical. They’ve run film clips on TV, over and over, all evening. The attorney general getting shot, the Secret Service agents ready to blast the first person who twitched, and you’re standing up and looking around like a damned fool.”
“Story of my life,” he muttered.
“Hug me again, Jacob Lee.”
“With pleasure,” he said and gave her another squeeze and a kiss. She drew away finally and looked at him with her arms around his neck. “Your mother called.”
He nodded. There was nothing to say.
“Oh, Jake!”
Finally she released him and put the car in motion.
The radio was on. Something about a huge fire in northeast Washington.
“What’s that all about?” he asked.
“Haven’t you heard? Somebody attacked a row house. Set half the block on fire.”
“When?”
“About ten tonight. Have you been working on this National Guard thing all evening?”
Jake nodded and turned up the radio volume.
“What’s happening, Jake? Assassinations, battles … it’s almost like a war.”
“It is a war.” After listening a minute, he snapped the radio off. “This is just the first battle. The have-nots versus the haves.”
“Have you eaten?”
“No, but I’m going to drop you at the apartment building. I need the car for a while. There’s somebody I need to go see.”
“Oh, Jake! Not tonight! You need some sleep. Why, the sun will be up in a few hours.”
Jake Grafton grunted and sat watching the empty streets.
“Let me come with you.”
“You go home and stay with Amy. I’ll be home in an hour or so.”
“They had Mrs. Cohen on television tonight, coming out of the hospital after seeing her husband. And Mrs. Bush. And Mrs. Quayle. This whole mess, it’s so evil!”
“Ummm,” Jake said, still watching the occasional passing car, wondering vaguely who was driving and where they were going at this hour of the night. The problem, he knew, was that the Colombian narco-terrorists knew exactly what they were fighting for and they wanted it very badly. They wanted a place in the sun.
“What I can’t figure out is why Dan Quayle called out the National Guard instead of bringing in Army troops.”
“Who knows?” her husband replied. “Maybe he got tired of all the flak he caught in ’88 about joining the Guard to avoid service in Vietnam. Maybe he’s going to show everybody what a fine fighting outfit the Guard is.”
“Doesn’t that bother you, his avoiding Vietnam?”
Jake Grafton snorted. “I seem to recall that back then most of the guys my age were trying to avoid going to Vietnam. In some quarters the quest took on religious status.”
“You went,” she said.
“Hell, Callie, half the country is still discriminating against Vietnam veterans. The U.S. government says Agent Orange never hurt anybody.”
“You went,” she repeated.
Jake Grafton thought about that for a moment. Finally he said, “I was always a slow child.”
His wife reached out and squeezed his hand. He squeezed hers in return.
Harrison Ronald Ford didn’t hesitate. He wrestled the dead weight that had been Vinnie Pioche into the backseat of the green sedan. He tossed the shotgun into the front seat, then got behind the wheel. The keys were still in the ignition.
He started the car. Three quarters of a tank of gas.