Capital Crimes

“I don’t know, but the postmaster would. His name is Seth Hotchkiss. He’ll be in the book.”

“And the ferry is the only way to the island?”

“Well, you can go by boat. The main harbor is here, at Dark Harbor. Oh, and there’s an airstrip.”

“Where?”

Rawls pointed to a spot on the page. “It’s not on this map, but it’s right here. It’s a paved strip, I think twenty-four-hundred feet. You can get a light airplane in there, or a chopper, of course.”

“Where’s a bigger airport?”

Rawls tapped the map. “On the mainland, right here at Rockland. I don’t know the runway lengths, but you can get just about anything in there.”

“What else?”

“That’s it. I promise you, he’s going to be at one of those two places. I’d try Manassas Airport first. That’ll be where he’s operating from. Islesboro is where he’ll run to when he’s done.”

“You think he’ll finish killing people at some point, then?”

“From what I heard on the news, he’s gotten his assets moved somewhere. He wouldn’t do that if he was trying to martyr himself.”

That coincided with Ki

“I’ll be looking forward to hearing from you,” Rawls said. “A cashier’s check will be fine, but I’d like a few grand of walking-around money in cash.”

Ki

In the car, Smith asked, “What do you think?”

“I’d call this a very low order of information,” Ki

50

TED WOKE UP in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, as was his habit, and when he came back to bed, he couldn’t sleep. He got up, turned on his laptop, and went to the ACT NOW website. Something had been troubling him. He had passed over a target because he was so obvious and because he would be difficult to kill. Now his conscience was hurting him. He felt he couldn’t end his little crusade without knocking off this one man, who had, Ted felt, done so much to harm his country. He stared at the photograph, and his dander rose.

Eft Efton, speaker of the House, had given this administration fits in getting legislation out of the lower house. The president had a slim majority in the Senate, but in the House he was half a dozen votes shy, and he had had to deal with the speaker to get any legislation through at all.

The speaker had protection, though, and since he was third in line for the presidency, he was guarded by the Secret Service, which had put Ted off. Now Ted reconsidered. The Secret Service detail would be much smaller than the president’s, perhaps only three or four guards. He opened his file on the speaker and read the notes he had kept when researching a possible kill. He had decided earlier, on the evidence, that the easiest shot, and one with the greatest chance of escape, would be while the speaker was in a moving car. The car, of course, would be armored, but Ted had a solution for that.

He looked at the routes the speaker’s driver took from his house in Georgetown to the Capitol: There were four, but it hardly mattered, if he followed the car from his house.

The time was more important; the speaker left his house at eight o’clock sharp each morning, walked quickly from the front door to the car, and didn’t emerge from it until he was safe in the Capitol garage.

Ted stayed up most of the rest of the night pla

He opened one of his weapons caches in the RV and found the piece that would defeat the glass in the speaker’s armored vehicle. It was, essentially, a large, semiautomatic handgun with a folding stock that would fire a.50-caliber, armor-piercing shell, and it had a ten-round magazine. He had made the first one in the Agency’s shops and the second one in his home shop, and, as far as he knew, the two examples were the only ones in existence. The weapon would be a nasty surprise for the speaker.

Ted chose a cotton jumpsuit for clothing and a brown wig and a Vandyke beard for a disguise. With his pla

AS SOON AS the G-III took off, Ki

“I want a twelve-man SWAT team assembled and ready to roll by three a.m.,” he said. “Be sure they’re equipped with listening equipment. I’ll call you back with a destination.” He hung up the phone and went forward to talk to the pilots.

“We’ve just cleared the Atlanta Class B airspace,” the pilot said.

“There’s a Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia,” he said to the pilot. “Can you land there?”

“Just a minute.” The pilot picked up an airport guide and checked Manassas. “They have a fifty-seven-hundred-foot runway. We can land there.”

Ki

“Will do,” the pilot said. He called Atlanta Center, requested the change in destination and was given a new clearance and routing.

“What’s our ETA?” Ki

“Three-thirty-one a.m.,” the pilot replied.

Ki

“We’re landing at Manassas?” Kerry Smith asked.

“Right. Here’s the airport plan.” Smith leaned over and looked at the book. “We’re assembling with the SWAT team in the parking lot, here. We’ll recce the hangar, here, first, then we’ll bring in the team and take it.”

“Sounds good to me,” Smith said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

IN THE HANGAR, cozy in his RV, Ted slept on.

51

THE G-III TOUCHED down exactly on schedule and taxied to Dulles Aviation. The engines were shut down, and the copilot opened the airstair door.

Ki

Ki

“Usually not until after five A.M.,” the man said, “but occasionally somebody will land or turn up for a departure. You guys want fuel?”

“Check with one of the pilots,” Ki

“That’s Mr. Zane,” the man replied. “He bought it a long time ago, I think, but he doesn’t seem to have an airplane. At least, we’ve never sold him any fuel.”

“Do you know what he uses it for?”

“A garage, I think. I’ve seen an RV come and go.”

“What kind of RV?”

“Big, white, stripes down the side.”

“That sounds like every RV. Do you know the make?”