'What? What do you mean?' He instinctively backed away, but bumped against the tall, immovable bookcase behind him.
'I mean I would have left you alone until the end of time.' He fired two rounds into Tony Lazaretti's chest, watched him fall, then fired a round through his head.
He stepped to the library window, reached up to unlatch it, opened it and pushed the screen out, sat on the sill, and swung his legs out. He could hear rapid footsteps on the staircase. He dropped to the garden. The first sounds of pounding on the locked library door reached his ears as he stood outside the window. He leaned into the room, fired six rapid shots through the upper panels of the door, then turned and walked quickly across the lawn to the driveway he had blocked. He got into the blue car and drove off toward the freeway.
He got on the 134 Freeway, drove to an off-site parking structure near the Burbank Airport, took his messenger bag and suitcase, and walked to the airport. He flagged a cab and had the driver take him to a big Holiday Inn on Century Boulevard, right outside Los Angeles International Airport.
As soon as he had checked in, he called for a reservation on a flight to Baltimore/Washington airport. Then he went to work preparing to travel. He laid out all of the pistols he had in his messenger bag. After examining all of them, he unhesitatingly selected the Kel-Tec PF-9 that he had taken from one of the guards at Vince Pugliese's building in Chicago. It was a nine-millimeter pistol with a single-stack magazine that held seven rounds. It was under six inches long and less than an inch wide. He dismantled it and examined the pieces, measuring them with his fingers. Then he went shopping.
He walked along Century Boulevard to a computer store on Sepulveda Boulevard, and bought a backup drive for a computer. It was only a small black metal box with a power cord and a USB connector. He saw from the one that was on display that when it was plugged in, all that could be seen was a glowing green light. He paid cash for it, and then went to a grocery store down the street and bought a few essentials-a tiny screwdriver for repairing eyeglasses and a roll of aluminum foil.
When he was back at the hotel, he used the small screwdriver to open the backup drive. He took each of the pieces of the PF-9 pistol, wrapped it loosely in aluminum foil, and then put it inside the metal housing. He took little care with the memory components, only watching to see if crushing or removing things would make the green light go out. When he had all of the pieces inside the housing, he used the screwdriver to close it. The green light still glowed. He unplugged the device, put it back in its original box, and put the box inside his suitcase. Then he took his messenger bag and went out again. He went for a walk, placing his other guns inside plastic trash bags in the Dumpsters he found at the backs of hotels and stores. When he had none left, he threw away the messenger bag too.
It was six o'clock. He had only four hours left before his red-eye flight to Baltimore/Washington, so he took a two-hour nap, showered and dressed, and took a shuttle bus to the airport. He checked his suitcase in at the desk and then went through security and walked to his concourse to wait for his flight. He spent much of the half hour he had left in the back section of an airport bookstore looking at books because he couldn't be seen from the concourse there. At boarding time he bought a book, walked to his gate, and scanned the passengers who were lining up to be sure none of them was familiar.
On the plane he kept his seat straight up, leaned his head back into the padding, closed his eyes, and thought about Washington and the things he would have to do when he got there. The plane roared, then tilted backward as it climbed rapidly into the sky, and when it leveled off, Schaeffer was asleep.
31
As elizabeth got off the plane from Los Angeles and walked along the concourse at Reagan International, it was nearly five P.M. She had gone a hundred yards past shops and food concessions before she realized that she had made a decision without knowing that she was deciding anything. She went out through the baggage claim and stood at the taxi stand. When it came to be her turn, she said to the dispatcher, 'The J. Edgar Hoover Building.'
She hadn't exactly anticipated that either, but after she had said it, she realized it had been implied in her decision. She sat quietly with her suitcase beside her in the back seat of the cab, and watched the familiar buildings of the city loom and disappear. It occurred to her that she never called it the Hoover building except when she was feeling particularly intimidated by it. The fact that the FBI building was named for J. Edgar Hoover and the Justice Department was named after Robert F. Kennedy always seemed appropriate. The Kennedy building was just on the south side of the Hoover building, but they were not the same place at all. At the Hoover building she was an outsider.
The cab driver was just about to start telling her about some outrage perpetrated in Congress this week, when she said, 'Excuse me, I'm sorry, but I've got to call my children.' She dialed her home number and let it ring until the voice mail came on. 'Hi, it's me,' she said. 'I'm just calling to let you know my flight has arrived and I'm on my way to the office for the last hour of the day, and then I'll be home. I thought you'd probably be home already. I hope everything is okay. If not, call me.'
When the cab arrived, she got out, stood in front of the building on Pennsylvania Avenue with her suitcase, took out her cell phone, and dialed the number of Special Agent Holman.
He answered his cell phone, 'Holman.'
'Hi, John,' she said. 'This is Elizabeth Waring. I'm standing outside the Hoover building right now. I just got off a plane from Los Angeles, and I believe I need a favor.'
'What are you doing out there? Come on up.'
'It's embarrassing, but I lost my Justice Department ID. I've only got an out-of-date one with me. I imagine the security people will think I'm trying to test their alertness, so they'll stop and detain me.'
'Probably. Using expired ID is the kind of thing the inspector general's people do as a test. I'll be right down.'
She stayed in front of the ugly concrete building. The center of the city was filled with beautiful old gray stone buildings with enormous pillars and imposing steps. But the FBI headquarters looked like a computer science building in a cash-strapped Midwestern college. While she waited she faced to the side so she wasn't staring at each person who came out and wasn't blocking the sidewalk. She felt odd standing there with a suitcase, but it was a carry-on, no bigger than the wheeled carts some attorneys brought to courthouses. She hoped people who saw her invented some sensible reason for her to be here with it.
After what seemed like a long time, she saw the door open and John Holman came out smiling. 'Elizabeth.'
'Thanks for coming out,' she said. 'I can't imagine what happened to my ID. I've ordered a new one, but it takes time to airbrush out the wrinkles on the photograph.'
He laughed. 'I just hope there isn't some teenaged girl out arresting people with your ID.'
'I'll chance it.'
'Come on, and I'll vouch for your identity and get you past the skeptics.'
'Thanks.'
They went into the building, stopped at the security barrier to present their identification, and rode the elevator up to the third floor. She walked with him, feeling a bit out of place, like a suspect being brought in for an interrogation. But then he opened a door with his name on it and they were in an office much like hers. There was a big desk and a leather chair behind it, but he sat across from her in one of the chairs around a table.
As she sat, he got up and brought a yellow legal pad and pen from his desk and dropped them on the table, then sat again. 'You said you needed a favor?'
'I did, and I do,' she said. 'I just got off a plane from Los Angeles. When I got there, I went to the neighborhood where some of the Mafia caretakers from the east have houses. I was pretty sure he would be there taking a look. I drove up and down the streets before dawn, checking license plates and car descriptions against the ones the FBI people had recorded around Vincent Pugliese's building in Chicago. I found his and left him a note with a number where he could reach me.'
'Did he call?'
'Yes. He said he'd be in touch, and then showed up at my hotel five minutes later and demanded I go off in
