what you stand for and what you do. All I did was show up.'
Fitzduane nodded. More than many, he reflected.
Standing to one side of Fitzduane, Warner was suddenly struck by the fanciful notion that he was watching the meeting of two knights from the Middle Ages.
Both had warrior stamped all over them. Both were being friendly enough on the face of it, and on the face of it had similar values, but there was still an unspoken competitive element between them. On second thought, the competitive factor probably emanated from Lee. Hugo Fitzduane had actually done the kind of things that Lee merely aspired to do. Of course, Lee had certainly served his time, but that was many years ago. Fitzduane had also been in Vietnam but had had major encounters with terrorism twice -the latter as recently as a year ago.
Lee, the paper pusher, was encountering the adventurer. The chief of staff was competitive from gullet to zatch. It could not be easy for him. Worse, he had to behave himself.
He wanted to enlist the Irishman's help, and Colonel Hugo Fitzduane did not look someone you could lead by the nose. Warner was silently amused. This was going to be fun.
Of course, what two gallant knights like Cochrane and Fitzduane were doing within the confines of Congress was another matter entirely. The Hill was not about daring deeds and gallantry. It was about politics, and that was a cold, reality-based world.
'Lee?' Tanya, one of the full-time receptionists, put her head around the door. 'Before you get comfortable… There is that Japanese delegation, and Patricio has just arrived.'
Cochrane gestured at Fitzduane. 'Take a seat, Hugo, and I'll be back in a moment. Dan can introduce you to our friend from Mexico while I exchange pleasantries with our Japanese friends. I gather it is just a courtesy call.'
He looked back at Tanya. 'Show Patricio in here. I'll see our Japanese visitors in the congressman's office. Have they had tea?'
Tanya nodded. Cochrane grinned. Tanya knew the drill.
'So let's do it,' he said. The receptionist backed away and Lee headed toward the door, then waited inside to give Patricio a quick greeting before temporarily ducking out. There were always too many people to see, never enough time, and certainly not enough space. Juggling all the elements was like playing with a Rubik's Cube.
There was no warning.
'What are you… Aaagh! My God! My God! They're killing us. They're kill-'
The shouts and short piercing screams were truncated before their full dreadful meaning was understood.
The sounds of people dying belonged to other worlds, not to the paper and verbal wars on the Hill.
They looked at each other uncertainly. There were TV sets everywhere, monitoring Congress on C-Span. Someone had switched into a drama and turned the volume up too loud. It was not real.
The door crashed wide open, forcing Cochrane backward and he tripped over the small table in the confined space and then collapsed onto the floor with it upended in front of him.
Warner stood up to help and Fitzduane was blocked.
'Huh-huh-huh-huh-haaaaa…'
The sound of dying.
Patricio Nicanor stood in the open doorway, the expression on his face compounded of shock and horror and fear and pain and something much worse.
It was the look of a fellow human animal knowing he was losing his life – and that was elemental and singularly disturbing to behold.
Even as they watched, and that brief moment seemed to take an eternity, his eyes bulged and his throat gaped open in a wet crimson smile.
There was a loud cry of triumph and effort from behind him, and then blood spurted from his torso and his head toppled from his body and rolled toward them.
Patricio's headless body was still erect, his heart still pumping blood, crimson spewing from the bloody stump. Then the corpse was released and slid to the ground.
The killer was suddenly revealed. He stood there for an infinitesimal moment with the bloody steel garrote in his hands and a look of triumph on his face.
Shouts came from the general office, and Fitzduane saw the terrorist begin to turn while letting one end of the garrote fall from his right hand and then reaching into the side pocket of his jacket.
There was the whumph of an explosion closely followed by screams of pain that were all the more disturbing for being muted.
Fitzduane's brain fought to process competing messages.
Logic dictated that what he was seeing could not be happening. He was in a safeguarded environment.
Instinct, brutally reinforced by the odors of death, told him that if he did not do something quickly he would be joining Patricio Nicanor.
Survival more than logic was the dominant force on this occasion.
Desperately, he looked around Cochrane's office for a weapon – anything, even a paper knife or an unloaded war souvenir.
There was nothing except an embossed coffee mug.
Anything can be a weapon!
He seized the mug by its base, leaped over the temporarily sprawled figures of Cochrane and Warner, and punched the Japanese full force in the face with the open rim as the terrorist was turning back to Cochrane's office after throwing the grenade.
Fitzduane put everything he had behind the blow. The shock of the vicious impact ran up his arm and jarred his shoulder, and he grunted with the pain and effort.
The mug shattered, virtually exploding.
Shards penetrated the assassin's face. The impact broke Wakami's nose and cheekbone, temporarily stunning him.
Edged metal slammed into the door frame beside Fitzduane as he ducked in reflex. He realized he would have been stabbed if the first killer's dazed body had not impeded his attacker.
He pivoted, smashed his elbow into his assailant's stomach, and jabbed with the broken remains of the coffee mug at the back of the hand holding the weapon.
The hand was caught between the blow and the door frame, and Fitzduane was fighting with the force of true desperation.
The man gave a shriek of agony as the bones in his hand were shattered and he lost his grip on the punch dagger.
Fitzduane grabbed the man's arm, the bloody hand dangling uselessly from it, dropped to one knee, and threw the terrorist over his shoulder into Cochrane's office.
Fitzduane then wrenched the strange-looking weapon from the wood. If felt like a woodworker's tool in his hand; the general shape was like a gimlet, but the blade was like a short, thin stiletto.
His movements flowing one into the other, he raised the slumped head of his original attacker with a hard palm blow under the chin.
As his head came up, Fitzduane hooked his right arm around and stabbed the needlelike blade into the man's ear.
The terrorist jerked upright in a horrified spasm as the punch dagger cut into him and his mouth opened as if to scream, but the point had entered his brain before the pain message could be implemented.
He collapsed lifeless like an abandoned puppet.
Fitzduane looked back into Cochrane's office.
The terrorist he had thrown there had fallen on the edge of the table that had been lying on its side since Cochrane had tripped over it. The impact had driven the air out of his lungs, and while he lay there gasping, Cochrane had taken his own belt off, made a sliding noose with the belt buckle, and looped it around the fallen man's neck.
The terrorist kicked desperately as the noose tightened, and his one good hand flailed as he tried to loosen the unrelenting grip.
Warner tried to pinion his legs. The terrorist writhed, his strength formidable in his desperation. His legs
