Robert Adams - The Clan of the Cats

When he had read the note, Senator Taylor Bedford nodded once. Arising, he stepped over to the small marble hearthed fireplace, struck a long, wooden match and lit a corner of the note. He held the blazing paper by one corner until it became imperative to let it go, then used the small brass shovel to thoroughly pulverize the ashes of it.

With his uncle’s agreement to do his very best to acquire at least some federal funding for Project feethami and the senator’s personal check for a midrange six-figure sum to tide his nephew over until dividend time arrived, James Bedford departed for his hotel. Tomorrow he would take his pictures and pitch to South Florida.

When he reached the street, however, his uncle’s promised car had not arrived, so he approached one of the dozen or so well-armed guards, showed his permanent pass to the building and asked about the promised transport.

The guard, who wore the stripes of a sergeant, smiled. “Don’t you worry none, Mr. Bedford, sir, he’ll be here. See, that motor pool’s a good half a mile away, and with this traffic the way it is—and it seems like it gets worser every minit of ever day of ever year, too—it’s goin’ to take him time for to get over here is all. A body’s got to learn patience in D.C., anymore.

“You best get out there t’other side of the inside barriers, though, so’s he can see you, sir.”

Bedford wove his way out between the overlapping ranks of thick concrete blocks placed to prevent any vehicle larger than a two-wheeler from getting anywhere close to the front of the building. All similar buildings in the national and many state capitals had been thus protected since a spate of terrorist car and truck bombings several years before. No one to date seemed to know just who had ordered the bombings, though several different terrorist groups had claimed “credit” for them.

As he stepped between two of the outermost row of blocks, so as to be easily spotted by Sloan, his uncle’s driver, a dark-blue, highly polished stretch limo slid smoothly to a stop before him to an ear-splitting screeching of tires and blatting of horns to its rear.

A red-faced man stuck his head and shoulders through an opening in the top of the sedan immediately behind the limo and shook a knobby, hairy fist, roaring, “Damn your whores ass, you mutha! Move that long-ass fucker!”

But Bedford did not move, not an inch, for this was not Uncle Taylor’s car; his was a lovingly rebuilt and refurbished antique, a Lincoln V-l2 limousine, and this one was a Mercedes.

Abruptly, the nearest rear door opened and a broad-shouldered man with big, craggy features emerged to hold the door, gesture and say in accentless Standard American English, “your car may well be an hour getting here, Mr. Bedford, and it looks like it may rain. Won’t you share my car to your hotel?”

More and still more vehicles of all conceivable descriptions had joined the growing line behind the halted limo. Regardless of the almost solid line of traffic passing in fits and starts along the two outer lanes, vehicle after vehicle of the stalled lane was endeavoring to worm its way in among those still moving at all, their attempts accompanied by the sounds of still more screechings and honkings and shouts and the impacts of metal on metal now and then.

As Bedford stood and stared at his supposed benefactor, an utter stranger to him, he saw a bicycle messenger zip up between the halted line and the moving lane of vehicles. Obviously a young man who expected to die quite young, he thought.

A police traffic copter suddenly swooped in from somewhere behind; so low was the aircraft that only by dint of flattening himself against one of the flanking blocks of concrete did Bedford keep his feet in the powerful propwash.

The craft banked around and came back over, thankfully not so low on this pass, its loudspeaker booming, “DS Limo BU-20560-ND, you are blocking traffic. Resume forward movement at once, please. You must make another pass for your passengers. This is an urgent order. Move at once.”

Bedford felt a tentative touch on his elbow and a voice to his mar said, “Mr. Bedford, sir, you better get in; ’less you do, the car’ll have to go ’round agin.”

Turning slightly. Bedford said, “Sergeant, this is not Senator Bedford’s car, not the one he ordered for me, nor is this man any member of his staff.”

“Is that so, sir?” said the sergeant, stepping past him in the direction of the halted limo and standing man. “And it ain’t no car I recanize, either, come to think of it. A’right, mister, lets see some ID, and damn quick-like, too.”

Making a movement toward one of the breast pockets of his dark suit coat, the standing man, smiling affably all the while, suddenly snapped his fingers, nodded wordlessly, then bent as if he might be reaching for something inside the rear compartment of the limo. But then, abruptly, he had stepped fully inside and slammed the door behind him, and the long vehicle was moving as fast as the traffic conditions would allow.

Pulling a communicator unit from his belt, the sergeant read off the numbers and letters stenciled on the rear of the limo’s trunk as well as those on its license plate. After a moment, he thumbed up the screen protector, read what appeared on it, then whistled soundlessly.

“Mr. Bedford, sir, I’m goin’ to have to ask you to come back inside with me, to our headquarters, downstairs. I think you just was about to be snatched by somebody for some reason, ’cause them D.C. vehicle numbers is s’posed to be on a five-ton truck and them Diplomatic Corps license plates was not an hour ago stole from the Thai Embassy along of the Toyota car they was on.”

It all took some time. Senator Bedford was obliged to render his personal assurances in writing and seven copies worth of it to the effect that his bona fide blood nephew, James Bedford, was of sound mind, reliable judgment, and even temperament and was fully trained and proficient with firearms before the federal permit could be issued on a priority basis. Only when the card actually emerged from out of the machine in the building guardroom was he allowed to give James physical possession of the stainless PPK .380 caliber pistol and its two magazines of cartridges to stow in the shoulder harness under his coat.

With the guardroom officer’s permission, he and his nephew were allowed to use one of the “safe rooms” of the facility—a room completely unmonitored by any source or agency, fully shielded against any sort of outside intrusion and constantly checked around the clock, every day, lest it be rendered unsafe.

Inside, Taylor Bedford threw his arms about his nephew and fiercely hugged him, saying, “God damn, boy. I’m glad you didn’t just clamber into that dammed car like too many other trusting souls might’ve done. How good a look did you get at the man who got out, eh? Did he speak with an accent? Could you tell what kind of accent it was?”

James shook his head. “No, Uncle Taylor, I think that’s what made me suspicious, too; he had no accent at all, not even any regional patterns or inflections, he sounded just like a newscaster. How did he look? Oh, average height, but with broad, thick shoulders. The only things remarkable about his face were that he had big features and fairly wide cheekbones, a deep cleft in the chin and what looked like a short, sanded scar to the left side of it. He wore a dark suit, white shirt, tie of some subdued hue, shiny shoes; the clothes were American cut. I think his eyes were blue, his hair was brown and parted to the right, his face had a very light tan where glasses hadn’t covered it, and that’s about all I recall … oh, except that he was missing the first joint on the middle finger of his right hand. I told it all to that lieutenant out there before you got down here.”