Mike Lawson - House Divided

But what the hell was he doing? Claire wondered. Where was he running to? Or who was he running to?

“Alice,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Go back to that liquor store and question the clerk. There was something funny about DeMarco going there.”

“Roger that,” Alice said.

Fifteen minutes later, Alice called back. “We got a problem,” she said. “The clerk at the liquor store is the son of a guy DeMarco works with at the Capitol. When DeMarco went to the store after seeing Bradford, he had the clerk copy the digital recordings to a flash drive.”

“Aw, Jesus. Did the clerk listen to the recordings?”

“No.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Yeah. He told me the truth.”

Claire wondered what Alice had done to the clerk.

“And today,” Claire said, “DeMarco went back to the store and got the copy, didn’t he?”

“Yes. He’s taking the recordings to somebody. Maybe you should focus on the metro stops near the Post, and I’ll head on over there now. But what do I do if I find him?”

“Tackle him. Taser him. Hit him with your damn car. I don’t care. Just get that flash drive.”

DeMarco waited as the train approached the next station. He’d switched trains a couple of times to see if he could spot anyone following him, and he thought his tail was clear. They couldn’t hear him and they couldn’t see him underground with their damn satellites, but he bet they could monitor the surveillance cameras in the stations. Nothing he could do about that.

The station he wanted was coming up next, and once he left the station it was gonna be a foot race.

The metro driver announced the next stop: Union Station.

He put the Nationals baseball cap on his head. He’d paid a kid, one of the metro riders, thirty bucks for the cap. Goddamn thief. The kid could tell he was desperate for the cap.

The train pulled into Union Station. He walked calmly toward the exit, keeping his head down, the bill of the ball cap-he hoped-hiding his face.

“Claire,” a tech said, “I think I’ve got him.”

Claire ran over to the tech’s monitor. “Where is he?”

“You see that guy?” the tech said. “Coveralls. Ball cap.”

“Blow up the picture,” Claire said.

The technician did. Claire couldn’t see the man’s entire face because of the bill of the cap, but she could see his chin. Yeah, that was DeMarco’s stubborn chin.

“That’s him,” she said. “Where is he?”

“Union Station.”

Dillon walked into the operations room. Claire had called him as soon as she learned DeMarco had made a copy of the recordings.

“Where the hell’s he going?” Claire muttered to herself.

“The Capitol?” Dillon said. “To see a congressman he knows?”

“Then why didn’t he get off at the Capitol South Station? That’s closer to the House offices.”

“Then maybe it’s a senator he wants to talk to. The Senate Office Buildings are three blocks from Union Station.”

“We have him on the satellite, Claire.” It was one of the techs speaking, his little nerd eyes shining. “He’s running.”

Claire looked up at the screen. Yeah, there he was outside Union Station, running. And he wasn’t jogging; he was sprinting. Claire bet DeMarco hadn’t run that fast since high school.

“Alice,” Claire said, “he just came out of Union Station. Do you have anyone near there?”

“I’ll be there in two minutes,” Alice said.

“Hurry, Alice,” Claire said. “Two minutes may be too late.”

One of the techs watching the satellite feed said, “He’s not going to the Senate Office Buildings. He just ran past them.”

Dillon closed his eyes. He knew where DeMarco was going.

“He’s going to the Supreme Court,” Dillon said. “He figured out who Thomas is.”

Alice could see DeMarco ahead of her; he was just starting up the steps of the Supreme Court. She couldn’t get any closer to the building in her car because concrete security barriers blocked the street in front of the court.

She stopped the SUV, opened up the tail gate, and took out the rifle. She heard a nearby pedestrian cry out in alarm.

DeMarco was now halfway up the steps.

She aimed at DeMarco through the scope, took a breath, and pulled the trigger.

DeMarco was almost there. He could see U.S. Capitol cops at the top of the stairs looking down at him. He could tell they didn’t like the way he looked-some wild-eyed guy running up the steps like a madman. He figured they were going to swarm all over him as soon as he made it to the top of the steps-and that was fine by him.

Then he tripped. He was winded running all the way from Union Station and his left foot hit one of the steps and he pitched forward. At that moment, just as he tripped, he saw a woman coming down the steps topple over. One minute she was walking, and the next second she dropped to the ground like her legs had turned to rubber. He didn’t know what had happened to the woman and he didn’t have time to find out. He got up and started running again.

“Damn it,” Alice muttered. The son of a bitch tripped and she missed him. She figured she had time for one more shot. She aimed again.

As DeMarco passed the fallen woman, he saw the dart sticking out of her chest. A fucking tranquilizer dart. Someone was shooting at him.

But he was almost there now, just a couple more steps to go. And the Capitol Cops were coming right at him, five of them.

DeMarco zigzagged to his left-not to avoid the cops but to throw off the shooter’s aim. But the cops thought he was trying to get past them, and one of them pulled out a gun. Oh, shit. The other four cops just kept coming at him but before they reached him, the one in the lead dropped to the ground. There was a dart in his neck.

And then the cops were on him, driving him to the ground, covering him with their bodies.

Thank God.

“How did he figure out that Thomas was Thomas Antonelli?” Claire said.

Dillon stood up. “I don’t know,” he said, “but he did.”

“Where are you going?” Claire said, when she saw Dillon walking slowly toward the door of the operations room.

“Where am I going?” Dillon repeated. “Well, Claire, I think I’m going to jail.”

And Dillon was right.

“Okay, Calvin, I’ll see your three Marlboros,” Clarence Goodman finally said, and tentatively put three Salems down in the center of the card table like they were hundred-dollar chips.

George Aguilera, smiling like he’d already won, immediately added a small can of smoked oysters to a pot which consisted mostly of cigarettes but also a John Grisham paperback and a five-year-old Playboy. “I’ll call your three and raise you three,” Aguilera said.

“Wait a damn minute,” Calvin Loring said. “I thought we agreed yesterday that the oysters were worth five cigarettes, not six.”

The debate ensued-and Dillon closed his eyes.

In the minimum security section of the Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex at White Deer, Pennsylvania, cigarettes were the gold standard and other commodities for bartering and wagering were based on their value. The value of a cigarette, however, changed periodically, owing to availability of supply and other more esoteric factors. Dillon was thinking about writing an essay on the subject, explaining how the prison economy in black market goods and services was eerily parallel to that of the outside world-there was inflation, price-fixing, insider trading, and market fluctuations due to disasters-although the disasters themselves were unique to prisons, such as lockdowns or retribution from the guards.

Dillon and the three men playing poker with him were dressed identically: blue jeans, white T-shirts, white socks, and plain-toed black lace-up shoes. Dillon’s jeans, however, had been tailored by another inmate, a man incarcerated for identity theft but who was quite skillful with needle and thread.