The Hearing (21 page)

“Yeah, they’re there.”

“Okay. Talk to you soon.”

Samantha asked, “What’d he say?”

“Well …”

He looked at her.

“You don’t want to scare me, right?”

“Samantha …”

He’d have given anything to have her somewhere else, somewhere safe.

“Don’t worry. I won’t get hysterical or anything. Are we going to get blown up?”

“I don’t think it’s that bad.”

His thoughts shot back to a meeting that morning with his father. It’d been the first time in two years he’d seen the man,
and their conversation had been a disaster. They’d always seemed unable to meet each other halfway on anything, and this time—well,
his father had really handed him a bombshell. And now he had another bomb to think about, a real one, in the street. What
was going on?

Samantha said, “I could die. My mother used to tell me all the time, ‘Do this you die, do that you die.’ What’d Carl say?”

“Not much more than we already know. There’s a Mercedes parked outside the house, and they think there might be a bomb in
it. But there’s armor on the front of the house and on this car, so if we stay here we’ll be okay. And when they get the bomb
disconnected we’ll come out.”

“How long does he think it’ll be?”

“He doesn’t know yet. He’ll find out.”

“Can we turn on the air-conditioning? It’s really hot.”

“I think we’d better save the power, Samantha. If we run down the battery, we won’t be able to use the phone.”

“What about the TV? Maybe we’re on TV. Then Carl won’t have to tell us stuff, we’ll already know.”

“Maybe later.”

“You think we’re going to be here a long time, don’t you?”

“Not necessarily. But it’s good to be prepared, right?”

Gus thought about the White House alert memo he’d
seen two days ago. The complete version, with attachments, was far more informative than the preliminary phone call the White
House intelligence coordinator had made to Rothman. An investigator employed by a law firm friendly to the White House (Dutweiler
had once been a senior partner) had “just happened” to be driving past Taeger’s business office early one morning when he
noticed the lights on. He parked and watched. A visitor went in, stayed twenty-eight minutes, came out, drove away. When the
investigator checked the visitor’s plate number, it turned out to be registered to John Harrington.

Forty-two minutes later, about the time it would have taken Harrington to drive home from Taeger’s office, a Pen Register
on his home phone showed a forty-seven-minute call to the Federal Correction Institute near Chicago, where Ernesto Vicaro
was incarcerated. Twelve minutes after the conclusion of that call, prison telephone records showed a call from Vicaro to
a “cousin” named Jonathan Tander. Four minutes after that call, Jonathan Tander’s phone was used to call a New York apartment
rented six months previously by a commercial trading company owned by TransInter, with links to the Colombian foreign intelligence
service. A federal tap on that phone recorded coded conversation between two males discussing what CIA analysts believed were
meetings and travel plans. Two days later three special action agents entered the country through Dulles and Miami International.
Subsequent record checks identified one of the agents as an explosives and vehicle-bomb expert named Rubi Aguilera. And now,
hardly more than a week later, there was the Mercedes station wagon, loaded with explosives, parked outside Blossom.

Gus thought about Vicaro, the fifteen-year-old bully try
ing to pull other kids off the wall of his father’s bullring, and his father letting him do it. Four years later he’d been
an intelligence agent in the Colombian embassy, then a Colombian legislator elected with his father’s money, and finally,
the obese young man under arrest in the back seat of a DEA car in Montgomery.

He thought about Harrington’s offer of a bribe, and the bullets in the luggage locker.

He thought about the political treachery of men like Senator Eric Taeger, of other men with out-of-control ambition for whom
Washington had been the final stop before suicide or prison.

He thought about the man Michelle had discovered in their garage, and the millions of dollars already spent in a media smear
against him.

He thought about the stakes: the approaching Supreme Court decisions that over the next few decades could reshape the nation’s
social, moral, and spiritual assumptions.

He thought about physical violence and moral violence and the fundamental difference, if any, between the two.

He was certain of two things: First, the Mercedes out there was proof enough of Vicaro’s determination to kill him. Keeping
Gus off the Supreme Court wasn’t the only thing motivating Vicaro—Gus had put Vicaro in prison, the only man ever to have
denied him anything. Pride, reputation, and ambition demanded Gus’s death. Gus knew, as certainly as he had ever known anything,
that if he left the limousine and walked out of Blossom, he would die. John Harrington might be interested only in Gus’s withdrawal
from the nomination, and so might people like Helen Bondell and Senator Taeger, but Vicaro wanted him dead—whether he withdrew
or not. The second thing Gus knew
was that he was ready. He would not withdraw. If he died, he died. But he would not withdraw.

An FBI agent named Max Iverson, just arrived in the command truck from the Washington terrorist unit, said, “I say, tell ‘em
to drive out.”

Skinny as a skeleton, Iverson had a bow tie, short-sleeved shirt, and he’d been told by his boss that the lead agent would
be DEA’s Carl Falco, on loan to the White House. The FBI wasn’t happy surrendering leadership to another agency, particularly
since Falco, a GS-15, ranked lower than Iverson. But Rothman, speaking for the White House, had told the attorney general
twenty minutes after the bomb alert, “Falco’s who we know, someone the judge knows, and Falco’s who we want.”

Another late arrival, a white-haired man sweating in a gray seersucker suit, unbuttoned his collar and said, “I wouldn’t.”
He looked about five years past retirement age and had the mischievous eyes of a rocking-chair geezer in an old people’s home.

“Garry Hardy,” Knight said. “State Department Security. Our golden oldie. Fortification and armor expert, used to build castles
in the Middle Ages.”

Knight grinned. Hardy prided himself on knowing everything there was to know about fortification and armor—buildings, vehicles,
boats, aircraft, people, even animals. Years ago he’d designed an armored garment for a German shepherd.

“So?” Knight said. “What can you tell us about Blossom?”

Hardy crossed his arms and stuck out a potbelly the size of a basketball.

“Four years ago, we put in two-inch Plexiglas windows, an inch of Kevlar between the brick facade and the interior plaster.
It’ll take twenty thousand pounds per square inch. That’s about one ton of RDX in an unfocused detonation at fifty feet. After
that …”

Carl said, “And if it’s more than that?”

“Blast’ll ride right up the front, like a mountain of water going a hundred miles an hour. Will the house stand up to that?
I don’t know. Explosives are like people. Fickle. They surprise you. Could be the whole block’ll go and that house’ll be left
standing all by itself. But I wouldn’t wanta bet on it. Now, if it’s
not
high explosive, say it’s an ampho bomb, a lot slower, more of a pusher than cutter, things might not be so bad.”

Carl said, “The limo?”

Hardy thought for a moment. “Another hundred and eighty thousand psi, the limo’s gonna fly. Weighs close to a ton, and anything
over a hundred thousand psi will move it. Over two hundred thousand psi, you’ve got a projectile. I saw the Mercedes coming
in, an E290 Turbodiesel. Take out the seats, strip it, you can pack in over a hundred cubic feet of the double-F mix they
used in Oklahoma. That blows, the limo’s gonna fly. I’d say, unobstructed, it’d do thirty feet easy. Hits the garage wall,
it’ll make a nice hole. That’s a side wall. No Kevlar. I wanted to fortify the sides and back, but all they’d spring for was
the street. They kept saying—”

“Double-F?”

“Fuel and fertilizer, ammonium nitrate.”

Knight said, “If you’ve got all the numbers right, what are the injuries to the passengers?”

Hardy had the strangeness Carl had found in other men
obsessed with things that explode. He screwed up his face and gazed at the ceiling, his brain shuffling numbers.

“An armored limo blast in Beirut eleven years ago, the car flew forty feet, attained an
altitude
of six feet, and the four men inside climbed out with cuts, contusions, cracked ribs.”

He smiled, geezer eyes flashing. “Some ride.”

Iverson glanced uneasily at Knight.

“But they could live,” Hardy said quickly, evidently seeing a need for encouragement.

Carl said, “If they drive out, and the Mercedes explodes while they’re in the driveway or on the street, what are their chances?”

“Outside?” Hardy’s eyes went wide with shock. “Driveway? Street?”

Carl said, “Yeah.”

“Parts, my friend. Take us three days pick up the mess.”

Carl nodded and looked at Iverson. “Still want them to drive out?”

Iverson unbuttoned his collar and loosened the bow tie. They were going to be here a while. “And where we are now. What’ll
happen here?”

Hardy grinned. “How far are we? Three blocks? Four hundred yards? A rumble. Shake, rattle, ‘n’ roll. Broken windows. I intend
to stay away from the windows.”

The truck was getting crowded. Through the open door, on the street, Carl spotted a familiar face. Familiar not because he’d
seen it before, but because he recognized the air of furtive detachment. Its owner lived among secrets, as the other agents
did, but his secrets, intended for a sharply limited official clientele, never had to endure exposure in a court of law.

Carl excused himself and went out to the street. The man, carrying a set of car keys, held the door of a blue Ford, and they
got in.

Selecting the ignition key, the man said, “We believe it’s a remote. Unless it’s very old, which would be a surprise, it transmits
not merely a signal but a code. So the transmitter can be anywhere. Could even be on a satellite. It’s passive, gives no indication
of its presence until it’s activated, and then it’s too late. So we’re not wasting time looking for it, and you shouldn’t
either. Approaching the problem from the other end—people rather than technology—has been more promising. The driver of the
Mercedes was a Colombian DAS agent, working under the cover of a private Miami security company owned by TransInter, which
of course is Ernesto Vicaro. There’ve also been intercepts and other data pointing to Vicaro and a bag of mixed objectives—politics,
drugs, vengeance. Not uncommon. And the Supreme Court nomination, of course. I have to admit, that’s a first.”

“How do you know who—”

“Videotapes of the vehicle’s driver at the security booth. The phony documents and plates can be taken to have been a product
of Colombian intelligence, to whom Vicaro, as you know, is not exactly a stranger.”

The man stuck the key into the ignition.

Carl said, “The transmitter may be on a satellite, but someone with a view of the house has to press a button.”

“And that button device could be disguised as almost anything. Cigarette pack. Belt buckle. Don’t even think of trying to
find it. Find Vicaro’s people instead. Squeeze them. The right guy will scream. They always do. Anyway, that’s our advice.
Maybe it’ll work in time, maybe not. Do as you like. I’m glad it’s not me.” He grinned. “I was never here.”

“Why’d you tell me? Why not the FBI or ATF?”

“Someone said, ‘Tell Carl.’ So I told Carl. And one other thing. An intercept an hour ago, Bogotá to a phone in the Trade
Commission—‘Have you seen the girl?’ They’re watching for someone, the girl or the judge. So bringing them out would not be
a good idea, in my view.”

The man turned the key, the engine started, and Carl got out.

The car drove off, slowly.

Samantha said, “How’re we gonna go to the bathroom?”

“Well, I don’t know. Do you have to go now?”

“No. TV, bar, telephone—they should have a toilet in this thing.” Her voice had an edge to it, enough to remind him of the
young girl pounding on the car window in Saint-Tropez. “I was on a bus once that had a toilet. And that was in
Germany
. You’d think—can’t we go back in the house to use the bathroom?”

“I don’t think so, Samantha. We’ll have to make some kind of arrangement out here.”

“In this
limousine?
”

“Or maybe the garage. I don’t see any other alternative.”

“If you think—”

She caught herself, and took a breath.

“I’m sorry. You don’t need that, right? Like you said, we’ll make other arrangements, when the time comes.”

The phone rang.

“Can Samantha hear me?”

It was Carl.

“No. Tell me what’s happening. Where’s Michelle?”

Gus’s voice had a confident, cheerful lilt, certainly for Samantha’s benefit.

“She’s not back yet. We know she went out, but we don’t know where. Soon as we find her, I’ll call.”

“Find her, Carl.”

“I will. Listen, the limo people out here say if we want to have power to keep the telephone up you’ll have to stay off everything
else, including the air-conditioning.”

“It’s really hot in here, Carl.”

“I can guess. I’m also told to ask you to keep the windows closed. They’re bulletproof and they’ll protect against flying
debris. And from now on we’ll have to use the scrambler.” The limousine telephone was equipped with an optional scrambling
device. “We don’t want anyone copying our conversations. And we wouldn’t like to hear them on TV and radio.”

“How good is the encryption?”

“Most devices can break it in forty-five hours, but state of the art’s more like ten minutes, and NSA does it simultaneously.
So even with the scrambling, we’re advised to talk with care.”

“What’s the estimate, Carl—how long are we going to be here?”