Джозеф Файндер - Extraordinary Powers

“Too far?” Molly objected. “You’re a good enough shot. Christ, I’m a good enough shot!”

“That’s not the point,” I said abruptly. “I have to be there, in proximity to the assassin, in order to determine which one he is. The press gallery’s too distant.”

I had overruled her, and she had reluctantly acquiesced. In matters of medicine she was the expert; in this I was — or, at least, I had to be.

The Capitol was lit up as I approached, its dome brilliant against the evening dusk. The traffic was snarled with weary commuters trying to get home from their government jobs.

Outside the Hart building a large crowd had gathered: spectators, onlookers, what appeared to be members of the press. A long line snaked out the door, presumably people waiting to be admitted to Room 216, dignitaries and the well connected who’d been issued special passes.

It was a glittery crowd, and no surprise: tonight’s extraordinary hearing was a hot ticket in Washington, gathering as it did some of the leading power brokers in the nation’s capital.

Including the new Director of Central Intelligence, Alexander Truslow, who had just returned from a visit to Germany.

Why was he here?

Two of the four major American television networks were carrying the coverage live, preempting regularly scheduled programming.

How would the world react when they saw that the surprise witness was none other than the late Harrison Sinclair? The shock would be extraordinary.

But it would be as nothing compared with the assassination of Sinclair on live television.

When would he come out?

And from where?

How could I possibly stop him, protect him, if I didn’t know when and how he would appear?

The driver secured my wheelchair to the platform at the back of the van and electrically lowered it to the ground. It gave off a high mechanical whine. Then he detached the wheelchair and helped me up the ramp. When he had wheeled me into the crowded entrance lobby, I paid him, and he left.

I felt exposed and vulnerable and deeply afraid.

For Truslow and his people, and the new Chancellor of Germany, the stakes were enormous. They could not risk exposure, that was certain. Two men — two insignificant men, really — stood between them and their own particular version of global conquest. Between them and dividing up the spoils of a new world; between them and an incalculable fortune. Not a measly five or ten billion, but hundreds of billions of dollars.

What, compared to that, were the lives of two spooks, Benjamin Ellison and Harrison Sinclair?

Was there any question now that they’d stop at nothing to have us, as they say in the spy business, neutralized?

No.

And there, in the room just beyond the crowd in which I sat, beyond the two sets of metal detectors, beyond the two rings of security guards, sat Alexander Truslow, beginning his opening remarks. No doubt his own security people were planted everywhere.

So where was the assassin?

And who was the assassin?

My mind raced. Would they recognize me despite the precautions I’d taken to disguise myself?

Would I be recognized?

It seemed unlikely. But fear is irrational sometimes, not subject to logic.

To all appearances, I was an amputee in a wheelchair. I had bound my legs underneath me, so that I was sitting on them. The wheelchair I had selected was wide enough to accommodate this. Balog, the makeup wizard, had hastily tailored the suit pants so that they looked like the sort of adaptation a real amputee would have made to an elegant suit. A lap blanket completed the effect. No one would be looking for a legless older man in a wheelchair.

My hair was quite convincingly gray, as was my beard, and the age wrinkles in my skin could withstand the closest scrutiny. My hands bore slight liver spots. My horn-rimmed glasses imparted a professorial dignity that, in combination with everything else, utterly altered my appearance. Balog had refused to do anything less subtle than that, and now I was glad of it. I appeared to be a diplomat or a business executive, a man in his late fifties or early sixties who had unfairly suffered the ravages of aging. In no way did I look like Benjamin Ellison.

Or so I was convinced.

Toby Thompson, of course, had been my inspiration for the disguise. A man I would never see again, never be able to confront directly. He had been killed, but he had given me an idea.

A man in a wheelchair both attracts attention and deflects it. This is one of the quirks of human nature. People turn to stare at you, but just as quickly — as anyone who’s ever been wheelchair-bound will tell you — they look away, as if embarrassed to be caught staring. As a result, the person in the wheelchair often attains a peculiar anonymity.

I had taken care, too, to arrive as late as possible, though, of course, not too late. An excess of time spent sitting in the hearing room, where I stood a chance, however small, of being recognized, would be dangerous.

I had taken another precaution as well, which was Molly’s idea. Since one of the most powerful human senses is that of smell, which often works on us subliminally, she had suggested placing a small quantity of an acrid, medicinal-smelling chemical on the seat of the chair. This hospital odor would, subtly and unstatedly, complete my disguise. It was, I thought, brilliant.

Now I waited in the milling crowd, looking around with gravitas befitting my imagined station for a place to enter the line. A middle-aged couple kindly gestured to me to get in line ahead of them. I took them up on their offer, wheeled myself over, and thanked them.

There was a long table by the metal detectors, manned by young Capitol Hill staffers who were giving out pale blue passes to those on their lists of invited guests. When the line had reached the table, I took my card in the name of Dr. Charles Lloyd of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.

One by one, people were being guided through the metal detector. As occasionally happens, there were several false alarms. A man ahead of me passed through the gate and set off the alarm. He was asked to remove all keys and change from his pockets. From the specs Seeger had provided for me, I knew that the metal detector was a Sirch-Gate III, that at its center it was sensitive enough to detect 3.7 ounces of stainless steel. I knew, too, that the security precautions would be extensive.

Hence, of course, the wheelchair. I knew that Toby had on more than one occasion carried a pistol through airport metal detectors simply by placing it beneath a sheet of lead foil under his chair’s seat cushion. I didn’t dare be quite that bold, though. A gun thus concealed would be too easily discovered in a perfunctory search.

The American Derringer Model 4, which is quite an unusual gun, had been built into an arm of the wheelchair. It would be indistinguishable from the surrounding steel.

So as I wheeled up to the search gate, I remained fairly confident that the gun would not be found.

But my heart pounded loudly and swiftly in my chest. It filled my ears with a rapid, thunderous beat that blocked out all other sounds.

I felt a rivulet of sweat run down my forehead, over my left eyebrow, and drop into my eye.

No, my heartbeat could not be heard. But my sudden perspiration was evident to all. Any security agent trained to look for signs of stress or nervousness would zero in on me. Why was this prosperous-looking gentleman in a wheelchair sweating so heavily? The lobby was neither stuffy nor particularly hot; in fact, a cool breeze ran through it.

I should have taken something to control my automatic nervous responses, but I couldn’t take the chance of dulling my reactions.