The Orion Protocol (32 page)

77

NASA Building/Tower One Elevator

The shooting pains down Augie’s arms and up the side of his neck were what he felt first, not anything in his chest. It seemed like one minute he was standing, handcuffed, and going down in the crowded NASA elevator with an FBI agent on each side, and the next moment he was down on the floor hearing a lot of shouting and oddly not giving a damn what it was all about.

78

Kinko’s/Washington Mall

On the west side of the Washington Mall, Jake had stopped trying to revive the phone connection and had driven like a madman to a Kinko’s down the street, where all the available rent-a-computers were already in use.

“I’ll pay twenty bucks for five minutes,” he said, brandishing a crisp twenty-dollar bill. “It’s an emergency. Who wants twenty bucks?”

“Me!” A fourteen-year-old black kid jumped up from a computer and started collecting his schoolbooks.

“Thanks.” Jake handed him the bill and sat down. Accessing the
Science Horizon
bulletin board, he saw a file labeled
ORION
and opened it. After reading Augie’s attached note, he played the sixty-second video file.

“Good God in heaven.”

Jake dug out his wallet again and stood up.

“Anybody have a clean Zip disk? Twenty bucks for a disk!”

Four hands with blank Zips shot into the air.

Outside on the street, a black GM sedan had double-parked next to the Navigator. Four men swarmed the truck.

Peering out Kinko’s storefront glass, Jake could see them. But all he was thinking about was where he had to go now, and the one stop he had to make before he went there. Salvation appeared in the form of an
on-duty D.C. cab stopping right at the corner, less than a ten-yard sprint away.

On the PBS soundstage, Angela and Marvin Epstein were hip-deep in a flood of Fibbies fanning aggressively out through the studio. The brown-shoe bio-invasion was led by a graying, beefy agent-in-charge named Stansfield, waving an official-looking document.

“We have a federal warrant to search the premises for a Commander Jake Deaver,” Stansfield said, confronting Angela. “And I expect everyone here to cooperate fully or you will be subject to arrest. Turn off these cameras.”

“No!” Epstein pointed at the camera crew. “Keep going.”

Marvin thought it curious that the agents didn’t know they’d been knocked off the air. It was going to tape, but that was irrelevant: this was a pissing contest.

“Keep rolling, keep rolling!” Angela gestured vigorously as Epstein got right in Stansfield’s face.

“A search warrant does not convey the authority to interfere with or abridge lawful activities. And Agent, uh, Stansfield, here, either knows the law or should know the law.”

The agent-in-charge looked ready to drop Marvin with the butt end of his gun. Instead, Stansfield just glared, turning away in disgust and raising his voice to include everyone on the soundstage.

“All right. I’m only going to say this one time. Obstructing justice, harboring a fugitive, or interfering with a federal agent in the exercise of his duty—these are all federal offenses. If anyone here knows the whereabouts of Commander Deaver and does not come forward now, I assure you, you can and will be subject to felony prosecution . . .”

The staff and crew remained silent, documenting everything on tape as Stansfield’s team of agents straggled back from their search empty-handed.

“Thank you, Agent Stansfield,” Epstein said. “Now, if your unproductive search of my client’s premises is complete, not to mention your willful attempt to disrupt a public broadcast . . .”

Stansfield glanced at the red light on top of an RCA camera moving
closer toward him. Up on the in-house monitor he could see his own mottled complexion growing unflatteringly larger and larger. Epstein grinned.

“Lovely. And for twenty-nine ninety-five you can order a copy of this program, along with a transcript, if you like. Just go to ScienceHorizon.org—”

“Save it for your licensing hearing, jerk-off.”

Stansfield and his men retreated as swiftly as they had crashed in. Crew and staff broke into cheers and applause.

“Marvin Epstein . . . Studley Do-Right!” Miriam exclaimed, rushing down from the booth to give him a hug. Angela joined the love-in.

“Good work!” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Thanks.”

Epstein looked both pumped and a bit embarrassed as the camera crew huddled around to shake his hand. Miriam’s assistant handed her a phone.

“Wolf Blitzer and Larry King . . .”

“Gentlemen!” Miriam was exuberant, almost shouting into the mouthpiece. “We expected a reaction, but shit-canning the Constitution?! What? Oh, no. Oh, shit. Hold on a second. Angie . . . ?”

“What?” Angela heard the bad news in her partner’s voice.

“Augie’s at Bethesda Naval Hospital in the ICU.”

“Oh, no.”

“What else, guys?” Miriam grimaced, locking eyes with her partner, and repeated the news as she was hearing it. “Emergency bypass . . . It’s not on-air yet . . . How about the crew?”

“Oh, God. People . . . everybody? Quiet, please.” Angela gestured for everybody to settle down so Miriam could hear.

“D.C. cops, okay. Do you know which station? Thanks. Who? Yes. Jesus! For what? Okay, thanks, guys. You got it.”

Miriam hung up.

“Marvin?!” She called it out at the top of her voice, not realizing he was standing right next to her.

“Yo.”

“Sorry. Jimmy and Danny . . .”

“The video crew?”

“Right. They’re with the D.C. cops. We don’t know what the charges are, probably resisting or interfering. Try and get it dropped, would ya?”

“Got it. What about Colonel Blake?”

“Augie’s in surgery at Bethesda, emergency bypass. We’ll know more in a few hours. Also, Eklund and his buds have been arrested by the FBI for gambling at the Mayfair Hotel. I want to bail them out, too, okay?”

“Gambling?” Marvin looked puzzled and then hurried out.

“Angie? CNN wants a stand-up, live, they’re sending a crew—”

“What else about Augie?”

“He’s under the knife, kiddo. That’s all we know.”

“Angie?”

Angela turned as her secretary began whispering urgently and gesturing toward the back entrance to the studio.

Jake was waiting at the top level of the parking garage with the taxi running as Angela dashed out the back door and threw herself into the cab, where they held on to each other like reunited refugees. Angela broke it off first.

“Augie had a heart attack.”

“Oh, God. How bad is it?”

“Don’t know. He’s in surgery. And the FBI just left, looking for you. It’s like we hit a beehive with a baseball bat.”

“Well, hang on, it’s not over. And it’s not just about us.”

Above them, a helicopter was sweeping past, whipping its harsh white light around. The cabdriver craned his neck up in curiosity and then looked at Jake in his rearview mirror.

“You got an address for me?” he said, chewing and cracking Nicorette gum in a nervous mechanical rhythm.

“Sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue.” Deaver looked at Angela and held her hand hard as the taxi took off.

79

By the time they arrived at the White House with a black helicopter in pursuit and two cars full of DIA operatives closing from behind, there was only one decision to make: to whom should Deaver surrender.

Directing the petrified taxi driver to the Marines manning the guard-post entrance, they decided Jake’s best chance was with the Secret Service and Angela insisted on staying with him. Without looking back, they jumped out of the cab and ran as hard as they could past the cement antivehicle barricades and out toward the White House lawn.

“Hey! Stop!” Triggering a deafening alarm, the Marines at the gate shouted after them and hit the high-powered area floods, turning night into day.

“Stop! Stop right there!”

The Defense Intelligence sedans careened up to the post, but were quickly blocked by a Jeep full of heavily armed Marines who didn’t seem all that impressed with their identification.

Jake and Angela were too occupied with flat-out running to see any of it. After twenty yards there were Secret Service appearing from all directions and more Marines sprinting toward them as the insectoid chopper hovered overhead, rotating around the axis of the searchlight it was painting them with.

Within sight of the colonnade just off the West Wing offices, Jake wheeled directly toward the Secret Service and grabbed for Angela’s arm.

“Now!”

They threw themselves down onto the White House lawn, where they were handcuffed, searched, and then led away laughing like idiots and trying to get their breath as the Treasury agents established their authority.