Brian Freemantle - The Watchmen

Lambert said, “Those who didn’t die-and most of them would have-would have been mutilated.”

“How many mines?” asked Cowley.

“Six,” said Lambert. “All Russian made. I’ll confirm it in a day or two, but I’d say identical to the ones used in New Rochelle. They weren’t just set here around the statue. The wires link on to the North and South Halls. All the plaques and inscriptions of Lincoln’s Gettysberg Address and his second inaugural speech would have been blown away. And the Guerin murals, of course.”

“I’d say the crater would have been eight, maybe ten feet deep. That’s all that would have been left, one damned great big hole,” said Tibbert, yawning hugely. “If the Arlington Bridge hadn’t been destroyed outright, the foundation structure would certainly have cracked. Whole thing would have needed to be rebuilt.”

Cowley gestured toward the White House. “What about that?”

“There wouldn’t have been a pane of glass left,” said Tibbert. He pointed to some more charges to the left of the statue. “They’re funneled again. The shock and the shrapnel is directed straight toward the White House. There would probably have been some structural damage, as well as just glass breakage. If the president had been in the Oval Office or in his side office he’d have been hurt from the glass alone. State Department would have been wrecked, too.”

“We’d like the ten-dollar tour,” said Cowley.

Every conceivable place in the statue or the chair upon which it was carved was packed with Semtex or a mine or both. Where the space was too shallow for the explosive to have been completely hidden, it had been painted the same off-white color to merge with the Colorado marble. So, too, had all the connected detonating wires and the clamps holding it virtually invisibly in place. All the detonators had been removed. Where they’d been was marked with bright red clips.

Pamela said, “How was it all going to go up?”

“Simple timers,” said Lambert. “Again I’ll need a day or two, but I think they’ll match what set off the Washington Monument charge. Here there were twelve in all. Russian. Standard design, according to our ballistics guy. Most of it prewired and connected in a safe house somewhere before being brought here. Each set to explode precisely at six tonight.”

“The time when a lot of home-going workers would have joined the rubberneckers already here,” mused Cowley. “And when the Arlington Bridge is at its rush-hour busiest.”

“I told you it was training manual material,” said Lambert.

These guys got jungle training for sure, Cowley thought. “Who the hell are we up against here?”

“People good enough to train professionals,” stressed Lambert. “This genuinely is state-of-the-art insurgency expertise. Although a lot was prepared elsewhere, they’d have to set all this up at night, unseen by any park guards or police despite the lights that are kept burning. Look at the way the wire’s hidden! Always tight into the crease or bend, never awkwardly left to become obvious. Since it’s all been made safe we’ve gone over every inch. There’s not a fingerprint or an indentation in the Semtex or a stray hair or a single piece of fiber. We’ve even tested the floor for detergent traces or cleanser: I’m sure we’ll find they actually cleaned the floor before they left.”

Pamela said, “Jesus!”

“It scares me shitless, too,” said Lambert. “I like being better than the bad guys. This time I think they’re better-cleverer-than us.”

“I don’t want that opinion spread about too much,” warned Cowley.

“Bill!” exclaimed the scientist, his face pained. “In just fifteen hours we’ve had a decoy bomb go off in the Washington Monument, just avoided half a ton of explosives destroying another, killing or maiming hundreds-one possibly the president-had to evacuate the White House and hundreds more people, reducing the capital of this great and good country to a helpless standstill! You really think I’m the only guy likely to realize we’ve got a serious problem with some very serious people?”

“Serious, yes. Cleverer, no,” said Cowley. “We stopped them blowing this place to hell, didn’t we?”

“You called it luck,” reminded Lambert.

Leonard Ross didn’t. He called it brilliant. So did the secretary of state, followed by Frank Norton. By the third repetition Cowley started to think the praise was as much to reassure themselves as it was to accord him credit. It worsened, too, the obvious discomfort of the police commissioner in front of whose car Pamela had stood, demanding a lift back to the J. Edgar Hoover building. It meant Frost’s two assistants having to walk.

A palpable, horrified disbelief permeated the reconvened meeting by the time Cowley finished recounting how narrowly disaster had been avoided. No one hurried to speak when he stopped, everyone needing their own time to digest it.

“Carnage,” said the president’s chief of staff, finally and in virtual conversation with himself. “Absolute, total carnage … a massacre like the Trade Towers.”

“Quite clearly the president has to remain at Camp David, where security can be guaranteed,” John Butterworth declared positively.

“Absolutely,” agreed the police commissioner, anxious to make a contribution. “We should move some National Guards to Maryland, too. Create a visible presence around the retreat.”

“I don’t think so,” rejected Norton, at once. “The president and commander-in-chief forced to quit the capital! That doesn’t sound the right message to me. In fact, it sounds like the totally wrong one.”

“Definitely,” said Hartz, just as quickly. “We don’t need to give the media anything more to beat us with-they’ve got more than enough already. And it would give the Watchmen almost as great a coup as they’ve been denied.”

“The mistake was underestimating by how much security needed to be increased,” said Cowley, careless of the sharp look from the police chief. “That won’t happen again, not after today, will it, Commissioner?”

“It won’t,” Norton broke in. “I’ll personally brief the Secret Service myself.” He, too, looked at David Frost. “You’ll liaise with all the necessary civic authorities, of course?”

The police commissioner colored further at what amounted to an order. “I spoke with the mayor from the car. It’s already in hand.”

“I’m glad something is,” said Norton, as close as he’d openly come to criticizing the D.C. police department.

“Lambert says there isn’t anything ?” pressed Ross.

“Not from the preliminary examination at either scene,” said Cowley.

“Provisionally the whole area will remain closed until tomorrow afternoon, when we’ll review it again,” said Frost.

“How are we going to take this investigation forward!” said Butterworth. He’d intended it to be a critical demand, but to Cowley it sounded more like an admission of defeat. From the shift around the room it was clear others thought so, too.

Looking to the parks authority inspector, Cowley said, “We didn’t finish talking about the Washington Monument. What’s the system for climbing up and down the stairs where the decoy went off?”

“You don’t go up, not normally,” said Michael Poulson. “A climb like that, five hundred and fifty-five feet, wouldn’t be medically safe for a lot of people. Tourists always go up by elevator. Part of the history of the obelisk is the different pieces of marble contributed by various states when it was being built. There are tours twice a day-one at ten in the morning, the other at three in the afternoon-when people can walk down with a guide who points out the gift stones.”