the intake screens. He reset the brake.
He knew that he was entering the period of greatest exposure, because now he would have to go down, enter the alley, attach the plastic tarp to the one screen to blank it off, and then attach a second tarp, with a nozzle receiver fitting sewn into its center, to the second screen. At that point, all the intake air for the ventilation system would be sucked through that one fitting. If it wasn’t big enough, he should see a lot of strain on both tarps.
If he had to, he could peel back two or three corners to keep sufficient air moving. Then he would attach the end of the tanker’s hose to the fitting on the tarp and trip the discharge lever. As long as the two tarps and the receiver nozzle let in just enough air, he could go on back up. After that, it would be a matter of choosing the best time to begin sending in the hydrogen gas. He wanted as many of those bastards in the building as possible when the hydrogen reached critical volume, but the more people that were around, the higher were the chances of someone discovering the rig.
Ideally, he wanted the blast to take place as close as possible to 8:00 A.M. Based on his calculations it would take around ninety minutes to fill the building with an explosive mixture, so gas injection had to begin no later than 6:30. It would still be dark at 6:30, but not for long. He wished now he had some way to spark the mixture from outside the building, if for some reason it didn’t ignite, but they had not been able to devise anything that would do that. Besides, he did not plan to hang around. He checked his watch again: 2:35. The minutes were passing slowly. He wanted to get going, but he knew that he would have to be patient and flexible. Hooking up the hose would be relatively easy: If they hadn’t spotted the hose coming down into the alley, they probably would not spot him. Then it would all depend on the whole lash-up remaining invisible until 8:00 a.m. He made sure the hose brake was secured, then unstrapped the five-gallon gasoline can he’d mounted on the back step of the truck. He took it to the cab, set it down in the middle of the bench seat, and taped on the ignition device, setting it for 8:00 A.M. That would take care of the truck if
the building explosion didn’t. Then he closed the doors, locked them, walked over to the interior exit ramp, and started down into the darkness of the parking garage.
It was just after 4:00 A.M. when the two agents finally signed Kreiss out of Metro Police custody. After retrieving the envelope with his wallet, watch, and keys, they escorted him out of the building. Then the agents put him into the backseat of their four-door government sedan, which was parked in the lot for patrol cars at the side of the station. They made him sit right in the middle of the backseat, and they kept him cuffed.
Lanny buckled both rear seat belts around him, so that if he tried to move, there would be two latches he would have to undo. Kreiss was perfectly happy with this arrangement, and even happier that there had been no hookup wire to which he could have been cuffed in the backseat.
While Lanny waited in the car with Kreiss, Johnstone went back into the precinct station and came back out with two coffees. The two G-men sat in the car with their coffee for a few minutes, making a point of enjoying it while Kreiss went without. Then Lanny called into their operations center on the car’s radio and reported that they were transporting the subject to Langley, as per previous direction. The ops center acknowledged and told them to report when delivery had been made. Lanny rogered and hung up.
Johnstone drove while Lanny rode shotgun, turned partially in his seat to keep an eye on Kreiss. It was Johnstone who kept peppering Kreiss with mildly insulting questions about why he was in town, what he had done that made the Agency people so anxious to see him, and what his part in the Blacksburg homicide had been. Lanny seemed to enjoy it all, but he didn’t say anything. Kreiss remained silent, his eyes closed, as if he were trying to sleep. Johnstone gave up after a while and concentrated on his driving. He took Constitution Avenue down to Twenty-third Street, drove past the Lincoln Memorial, and then went over the Memorial Bridge into Arlington. Kreiss kept track of where they were while he made his mental preparations.
When Johnstone turned down the ramp that led to the northbound George Washington Parkway, Kreiss began to reposition himself, adjusting his body in tiny increments. By now, Lanny had turned back around and was bitching to Johnstone about duty schedules back at FBI headquarters.
Kreiss, who had driven the G.W. Parkway a few thousand times during his career, needed only an occasional glance out of slitted eyes to know
precisely where they were. The G.W. was a four-lane divided parkway, climbing up through the Potomac palisades toward McLean and Langley in northern Virginia. Because they were going northwest up the Potomac River, they were on the river side of the parkway. To the left was the low, stonewalled median and the eastbound roadway, bordered by a band of large trees. To his right were more trees, through which the Potomac was clearly visible, initially right alongside, and then increasingly below them as the parkway climbed some two hundred feet above the river’s rocky gorge.
Kreiss was not going to allow himself to be taken into the Agency headquarters. He knew what could happen there, and where he might be taken from there. Someone pretty senior in the Bureau must have reached an understanding with the Agency hierarchy. Or perhaps higher, he thought, like maybe someone at Justice. This little trip to Langley wasn’t about any bomb plot. This was about payback for Ephraim Glower. It took real juice to launch Misty, so until he knew that Lynn was truly safe, he was going to do whatever it took to remain free and operational. If he could prevent whatever Browne McGarand was planning in the District, fine, although he hadn’t actually promised Carter anything. But she promised you something pretty important, he reminded himself. Either way, he would not allow these bozos just to hand him over like a lamb to the slaughter to a government agency that had every motive to make him disappear. He had personally delivered one individual to the federal maximum- security prison in Lewisburg, someone he knew for a fact had never seen the inside of any courtroom, or the outside world, ever again.
When they passed the first scenic overlook turnout, he got ready.
There was another overlook in exactly one mile, right below the Civil War park where the president’s lawyer had been found shot to death in a supposed suicide. Lanny was complaining about getting stuck on midnight-to- eight shifts twice a month when other, more junior agents were getting tagged only once a month, especially if they were female. Johnstone appeared to be tuning out Lanny’s monologue, but he kept up a steady stream of uh-huhs while he drove and sipped his coffee. Kreiss could see that he was doing an even sixty-five, ten miles over the posted speed limit, but entirely normal for the parkway, especially at 2:30 a.m.
Any Park Police cruiser sitting out there would recognize the sedan as a government car. Johnstone had his left hand on the wheel and his right hand down in his lap, holding the paper coffee cup.
Kreiss began surreptitiously tugging on the seat belts, taking out all the slack until they were almost painfully tight around him, the two
shoulder straps cutting into his chest in an X configuration. When he saw the sign for the next scenic overlook, he sat way back in the seat and tensed his legs. When he saw the actual turnout coming up on the right, he raised his right leg and, pivoting on his left buttock, leaned left and kicked up to strike Johnstone under his right ear as hard as he could. Johnstone gave a grunt and pitched to the left, against the door, which had the effect of turning the car to the left, directly toward the stone wall in the median.
Lanny dropped his coffee, raised both hands, and yelled, “Look out!” to the stunned Johnstone, and then grabbed the wheel, yanking it hard right.
The car swerved back across the two lanes, tires screeching, until the left front tire failed and the car whip- rolled three times down the outer northbound lane in a hail of glass and road dust. Then it hit a small tree, spun around the tree on its side, and slid down the embankment and into the scenic-overlook parking lot fifty feet below the level of the roadway. It righted itself as it slalomed into the parking lot and then crunched partially through the low stone wall overlooking a sheer cliff that fell all the way to the Potomac.
Kreiss, who had been prepared for the crash and was double-belted, was unhurt. He popped the latches on the seat belts and lunged forward to grab Lanny around the throat with his cuff chain. Lanny, stunned by the violence of the crash and entangled in his deflated air bag, did not resist as Kreiss hauled him back over the seat and stuffed him down into the space between the backseat and the floor. He checked on Johnstone, who appeared to be unconscious and pinned beneath the headliner of the car, which had been smashed down on him in the crash. His face was obscured by his deflated air bag. The front windshield was gone, as were all the windows, and there was a strong smell of gasoline in the car.
Kreiss fished in Lanny’s suit pockets for the cuff key. When the agent stirred, Kreiss hit him once in the temple with a raised-knuckle fist, and the man sagged. Kreiss got the key, unlocked the cuffs, threw them out the window, and climbed over the front seat to retrieve the envelope with his own wallet and keys from the floor. He reached into Johnstone’s suit jacket pocket and took his credentials. He left their guns alone. He turned off the
