Джозеф Файндер - Extraordinary Powers

“Nice,” Balog said admiringly. “Quite slim.”

By the time the tanning creme had done its work, Balog had applied enamel paint to darken my teeth and had fitted me with a fully realistic-appearing, neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper-gray beard and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

When Molly returned to the room, she did a true double take, her hand to her mouth.

“My God,” she said. “You fooled me for a second!”

“A second’s not good enough,” I said, then turned to look at myself for the first time in the hotel room mirror. I, too, was astonished. The transformation was nothing short of extraordinary.

“The chair’s in the trunk,” she said. “You’re going to have to give it a careful inspection. Listen...” She glanced at the makeup artist warily. I asked him to step into the hallway for a few moments so we could talk.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There was a problem with the hearing,” she said. “Ordinarily, Senate hearings are open to the public, except for those designated specifically as closed. But this time for some reason — maybe because it’s being televised live — they’re admitting only members of the press and ‘invited guests.’”

I replied calmly, unwilling to succumb to panic. “You said was. ‘There was a problem.’”

Her smile was wan; something was still troubling her. “I placed a call to the office of the junior senator from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,” she said. “I told him I was the administrative assistant to a Dr. Charles Lloyd of Weston, Massachusetts, who’s in Washington for the day and wants to see a real-live Senate hearing in action. The senator’s people are always delighted to do a favor for a constituent. A Senate pass is waiting for you at the hearing room.”

She leaned over and kissed me on the forehead.

“Thanks,” I said. “But I don’t have any ID in that name, and there’s no time to—”

“They won’t be requesting ID at the security check. I asked — I told them your wallet had been pickpocketed; they suggested you call the D.C. police about that. Anyway, they never request ID for admittance to open hearings — they rarely require passes, for that matter.”

“And what if they check and discover there’s no such person?”

“They won’t check, and even if they did, there is such a person. Charlie Lloyd is the chief of the surgical division at Mass. General Hospital. He always spends the entire month in the South of France. I double-checked. Right now Dr. Lloyd and his wife are vacationing in the Îles d’Hyères, off the coast of Toulon, on the Côte d’Azur. Of course, his answering service is instructed only to tell callers he’s out of town. No one likes to hear that their surgeon’s boozing it up in Provence or whatever.”

“You’re a genius.”

She bowed modestly. “Thank you. Now, about the flight—”

I sensed immediately from her tone that all was not right. “No, Molly. There isn’t a hitch in the flight , is there?”

She replied with a sudden edge of hysteria. “I called every single charter company within a hundred-mile radius. I could find only one that had a plane available at this late notice. Everyone else has been booked for at least a week.”

“So you booked that plane, I assume...?”

She hesitated. “Yes. I did. But it’s not nearby. The company’s at Logan Airport.”

“That’s an hour away!” I thundered. I looked at my watch; it was after three o’clock in the afternoon. We had to be at the Senate before seven. That left us only four hours! “Tell them to have the plane meet us at Hanscom. Pay whatever they ask. Just do it!”

“I did it!” Molly exploded in return. “I did it, dammit! I offered to double , even triple their rates! But the only plane they had — a twin-engine Cessna 303 — wasn’t going to be available until noon or one, and then it had to be fueled and whatever else they—”

“ Shit , Molly! We have to be in Washington by six o’clock at the latest! Your goddamned father —”

“I know!” She had raised her voice almost to a shriek; tears were coursing down her cheeks. “You think I’m not aware of that every second , Ben? The plane’ll be there at Hanscom in half an hour.”

“That barely gives us enough time! The flight takes something like two and a half hours!”

“There’s a regular commercial shuttle leaving Boston every half hour, for God’s sake! There should be no problem—”

“ No! We can’t take a commercial flight. That’s insane. At this point? It’s far too risky, if for no other reason than the guns.” Once again I looked at my watch and did a swift calculation. “If we leave now, we should just barely make it to the Senate.”

I let Balog in, paid him, thanked him for his speedy assistance, and showed him out.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” I said.

It was ten minutes after three.

At a few minutes past three-thirty, we were airborne.

Molly had, as usual, come through in the clutch. The architectural plans of all public buildings in Washington, D.C., are a matter of public record, filed in the city records bureau. The problem, however, is obtaining them; but a number of private firms in Washington specialize in such searches for a fee. While I was becoming a dignified, wheelchair-bound older man, Molly had contacted one of these firms and — at an exorbitant cost for expediting the service — had had them fax her, at a local copy shop, photocopies of the blueprints of the Hart Senate Office Building.

While that was in the works, she had, posing as an editor of The Worcester Telegram , contacted the office of the senator from Ohio who served as vice-chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. The senator’s press aide was more than happy to fax this editor the latest schedule for tonight’s historic hearing.

Thank God, I told myself, for facsimile technology.

During the two-and-a-half-hour flight, we scrutinized the schedule and the plans until I felt sure my plan was workable.

It seemed to be foolproof.

At 6:45, the chair-car van I had hired at the airport pulled up to the entrance of the Hart Senate Office Building. A few minutes earlier, the driver had, as we requested, dropped Molly off several blocks away at a car-rental agency. She was angry about this aspect of my plan: if I was risking my life to save that of her father’s, why should she be reduced to, in effect, driving the getaway car? She had done that in Baden-Baden, and didn’t want to do it again.

“I don’t want you there,” I told her on the way to the Capitol. “Only one of us should be subjected to this danger.”

She sputtered in protest, but I went on: “And even if you were in disguise, it’s way too risky for both of us to be there. People are going to be watching very closely — we can’t afford to be seen together. Either one of us might be recognized; having two of us there at least doubles the chance that we’ll be spotted. And this is a job that requires only one person.”

“But if you don’t know the identity of the assassin, why is the disguise necessary?”

“There will be others — working for Truslow or the Germans — who will no doubt be briefed on my appearance. And who’ll be instructed to find me — and to eliminate me,” I replied.

“All right. But I still don’t understand why you can’t just smuggle a gun through the press gallery and take out the assassin. I doubt there’s a metal detector there.”

“Maybe there is a metal detector there tonight, though I doubt it. But in any case, it isn’t just a matter of smuggling a gun in. The press gallery’s on the second floor — too far away from the witness stand. And too far away from where the assassin will have to be stationed.”