Spare me, she thought, breaking eye contact quickly. His rapt attention felt unbecoming.
The chair of the committee was the senior senator from New York, known for his curt manner, cutting remarks, and remarkable intelligence. He banged the gavel and the assembled fell silent at once. Lana glanced around. Standing room only, which told her the media and Capitol Hill cognoscenti expected the circus Holmes had predicted.
Three rings, no doubt.
What none had expected — what shocked and horrified everyone — was the ringing explosion of a bomb so nearby that the walls and floor shuddered.
As long-dormant dust loosed from the ceiling, every head turned toward the rear. Senator Willens was no longer looking so entertained by Lana’s presence; his startled eyes peered right past her.
Capitol Police officers burst through the doors. One of them announced an emergency evacuation of the hearing room. As swiftly as he spoke, the men and women with him fanned out and directed those attending the hearing to the exits already filled with the receding backs of the senators.
Agent Robin Maray appeared suddenly at Lana’s side, telling her to follow him. “You too, Deputy Director Holmes.”
But Lana’s old friend was gripping his chest. Without warning, he pitched forward heavily, head and upper body coming to rest on a three-ring binder.
Agent Maray was already on the radio transmitter tucked under his suit jacket lapel, calling for emergency medical personnel.
Lana checked Holmes’s neck for a pulse, finding it thready and slow. He did not react to her touch.
“We’ve got to get you out of here.” Robin signaled one of the security guards, who arrived as two paramedics raced into Dirksen. He took Lana’s arm. “We don’t know what’s coming next,” he said into her ear.
Loathe to leave Holmes, Lana asked, “Is he going to be all right?”
She immediately recognized the juvenile futility of her question, with the paramedics only beginning to attend to the deputy director. But Robin was already rushing her toward the door through which the senators had exited moments ago. From ahead, gunfire erupted abruptly. Outside the walls of the Senate building, she hoped. A second bomb, farther away, exploded as they passed quickly through a smaller room, rattling windows they were sprinting past.
“Stay low,” Robin ordered as they burst into a light-filled hallway.
“Where are we going?” she asked as they scrambled down the broad corridor.
“A secure room,” he replied.
Senate staffers were stuffing themselves into an elevator.
Turning to Lana, he pointed to two Capitol Police officers rushing down a flight of stairs about thirty feet away. “Follow them.”
She nodded and fled.
He bolted to the elevators, ordering the mostly younger men and women out of the packed space, grabbing a callow-looking man frantically working his phone, oblivious to Robin’s commands.
“All of you, use the stairs!” he shouted.
That was the last Lana heard of Robin as she headed down them herself. Even in the rush she noticed people on their phones, swearing in exasperation. Then she overheard a man say he couldn’t get online.
Here? Lana wondered if the attack included the Senate’s ISP. She’d have to check.
In seconds she was sequestered in a crowded basement corridor, awaiting entry into what appeared to be the Russell’s very own panic room. She tried to use her phone. No service for her, either.
She looked up as the door to the panic room was locked, leaving her and about forty others in the hallway.
“The rest of you must stay down here for the time being,” a blue-suited woman announced with great authority. “We’re here to protect you.”
Officers in full SWAT regalia flanked the crowd. The men and women were armed with automatic rifles, helmets, grenade launchers, and belts heavy with weapons and gear less readily identifiable to Lana.
She could not let herself believe ISIS or any other terrorists had actually laid siege to the nation’s capital. This wasn’t Ramadi. This wasn’t even San Bernardino. This was Washington DC. But neither would she have believed that Liberty Square could ever have been the scene of a massacre of innocents.
She heard children crying and wondered how they’d ended up down there. She also remembered an alarming episode of Homeland from years ago, in which Washington’s elite were jammed into a supposed secure room — with a suicide bomber in their midst. What had unnerved her then was what frightened her now: the very real possibility that a mass killer already stood among them.
With no Internet access, Lana could do nothing but think and worry. She found hope in every minute that passed without an explosion in the corridor or terrorists trying to shoot their way through the Russell.
A tall man wearing lanyards and laminates walked through the crowd, eyeing everyone carefully. She figured he was searching for a suicide bomber. But what do you look for? The would-be bomber on Homeland had been among the least likely suspects.
Turned out the man with the laminates was looking for her.
“Ms. Elkins, come with me.”
“Why? Who are you?”
“Detective Adams, Capitol Police. You were scheduled to testify, weren’t you?”
“That’s correct.”
“So you were in the hearing room when the bomb went off?”
“Yes.”
He was already guiding her up stairs near the rear of the building.
“I’m going to put you in the hands of the Secret Service. They want to talk to you.”
A special agent of the Secret Service intercepted them on the staircase. The woman wasted no time getting to what appeared to be her most critical question: “Did anybody in Dirksen react strangely, in your opinion?”
“No, but all I noticed was dust falling down from the ceiling before Deputy Director Holmes collapsed onto the table. Do you know how he’s—?”
“So no one ran off right away? Nobody was praising God or Allah or anything obvious like that?”
“No, nothing. People just looked shocked. I don’t even remember anyone asking what it was. It was like everyone knew.”
“We want you out of the Capitol zone as soon as possible. You might well have been a target. Did you drive?”
“Yes.”
“FBI Agent Stan Pence will get you to your car and accompany you home. He’ll be here shortly. Do not go to Fort Meade. The marine detachment there is fully activated. We want you to go home. As we understand it, your residence has bulletproof windows, a guard dog, and that you’ve been trained with firearms.”
“That’s correct,” Lana replied.
“Ms. Elkins, we also need to tell you that there was a bombing just outside CyberFortress, almost to the second with the one that went off outside Dirksen. We don’t believe that’s a coincidence.”
“Oh, my God.” Nightmare images appeared, unbidden, in her mind’s eye. “Was anyone injured? Or killed?”
“No injuries, no deaths, except for the suicide bomber.”
“We have blast-resistant exterior walls over there, too.”
Lana tried to text Emma immediately. Failed. She tried calling. Failed. And still no Internet.
The special agent went on: “The bomber was a woman. She made an attempt to enter your firm but was repulsed by security personnel.”
“I should be with them.”
“No, you should not. Except for security personnel, they’ve been evacuated until we can secure the surrounding blocks.”
“How is Holmes?” Lana asked again.
The woman rested her hand on Lana’s shoulder. “Headed for the ICU at the VA Medical Center.”