Authors: Robert Ellis
Raymond smiled, cocky. But Frank could see it in his face. Just the hint of pain. A trace of doubt and uncertainty. Raymond had been surprised by Frank and taken a heavy blow to his shoulders and back.
Frank went for the gun.
He grabbed it, pointed it, pulled the trigger three times. The muzzle flashed. The roar bouncing off the walls and blood splattering all over Frank’s face. As Raymond fell on top of him, Frank could see the hole in the man’s cheek.
Linda screamed, muscling Raymond’s body off him and kicking it. It was still and lifeless, and by the grace of God, his eyes were closed. The sound of the gunshots dissipated and Frank began to hear footsteps racing toward them. Pushing Raymond’s body off his legs, he jumped to his feet and pulled Linda into the elevator.
His eyes danced over the panel. There were only two choices. Frank slammed his palm against the top button. Nothing happened and he hit the button again and again just as Jake and Norman ran into the lobby and turned toward them.
Frank raised the gun and both men flinched as he pulled the trigger. The gun clicked and he pulled the trigger again until he realized that the mag was empty. He saw the guns in Jake and Norman’s hands, the two men smiling at him. Then the elevator doors closed and Frank and Linda were lifted into the air.
He gathered Linda into his arms as the sound of gunshots blasting below their feet overtook the Muzak. He buried his head in her hair, concentrating on the smell of her skin at the base of her neck. He was trying to hold on to it. Remember it. After the gunshots faded, he could hear the elevator creaking and banging against the sides of the narrow shaft in time to a Bob Dylan song playing over a speaker on the panel. The melody had been bastardized, the lyrics removed.
The doors opened. When they stepped out into the richly tiled hall, Frank realized where they were and that he’d made a terrible mistake. They had run in the wrong direction after climbing the stairs. They were in a private chamber of the Capitol which contained hideaway offices for the congressional elite. Only the dome was above them now.
The elevator doors closed before Frank could stop them.
“There’s got to be another way down from here,” Linda said.
Frank shook his head. “There’s no way down. Not unless you’ve got a set of keys.”
He opened the heavy steel door leading to the dome. Linda gazed into the darkness a moment before following him inside. Then he slammed the door shut, jamming the hasp lock with Raymond’s empty gun.
They were standing in a narrow crevice between the cast-iron dome seen on the outside of the Capitol and the interior dome that served as the building’s ceiling. It was hot and dirty and claustrophobic, the air as dead as an attic.
Frank’s eyes followed the series of catwalks and open steel stairways leading up to the observation deck at the top of the building. Small steel plates were set into the interior wall every ten feet or so and followed the steps to the top. The plates opened and closed and provided the police and secret service with a bird’s-eye view of the Capitol’s rotunda before the invention of closed-circuit TV.
Frank had actually made the climb to the top once before. It was more than fifteen years ago and had been difficult to arrange. No one was allowed into the dome unless they could get a member of Congress to make the climb with them. It was a long way up to the top. Not many people in Congress had the time or interest in becoming a tour guide.
Frank glanced back at Linda. The clasp on the door’s lock wouldn’t hold off Jake and Norman for very long. If they started up the open set of stairs, Jake would have a clear shot at them. Then he noticed a series of windows on the other side of a huge air shaft encircling the dome. He hadn’t seen them at first because a sheet of plywood was leaning behind the first set of stairs.
Linda must have been thinking the same thing he was and broke for the stairs before he could say anything. They pulled the plywood away, ducked beneath the catwalk and looked outside.
The windows provided a view of the flat roof at the base of the dome. The sun had set, the roof lit up with glaring spotlights. Frank checked for a latch and hinges but couldn’t find any. The window was sealed, closing them in. When he heard Jake and Norman throwing their weight into the door behind them, he motioned Linda out of the way and kicked through the glass.
A sudden blast of cool air hit their faces, whistling past them as they climbed outside and started across the roof. The glare from the huge lights was horrific. Even so, within a few minutes it became clear that they were out of options. There was no way down. Then Frank turned and looked at the huge cast-iron dome before them, magnificent against the night sky. Steps had been molded into the south side of the dome, rising to the very top.
Frank pulled Linda toward him and met her eyes. It was a long way up without a handrail.
“Can you make it?” he asked.
She looked back at him, her teeth clenched and her nostrils flared. Then she grabbed hold of the first step and started up the dome with Frank following behind.
The steps were slippery, the climb, steep. They were halfway up when Frank heard voices from the roof below. Jake and Norman had found the window and were searching the roof through all the glare. When Jake finally looked up, he spotted them.
Frank missed a step, grabbing hold of it and starting up again. He saw Jake racing up the steps and laughing as he closed in on them.
In spite of the adrenalin rushing through his body, Frank could feel himself slowing down. His lungs were smoked out. His chest had tightened up, his legs getting heavier. He’d been smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes every day for three weeks. Thirty cigarettes a day. Two hundred and ten cigarettes a week. Six hundred and thirty since he weakened and gave into the nicotine less than a month ago.
He reached the top of the steps, crawling with Linda along the dome and trying not to look at the sharp slope down. There was a steady breeze with strong gusts, the feeling of height overwhelming as they stood up. Frank saw the observation deck ten feet above them. If they could reach the top and climb over the wall—if the door was unlocked—then they could escape by running back down the stairs.
But then time ran out. Frank heard Jake and turned to see him rising to his feet behind them. His eyes had an odd glow about them and he sneered at Frank as he drew his pistol from his waistband and cleared his throat.
“It’s not a dog-eat-dog world anymore,” he said. “Everything’s changed now. It’s rat-eat-rat, big shot. Winner takes all.”
A moment passed with Jake’s finger tickling the trigger on the semi-automatic. When he turned toward Linda and pointed the gun at her, the world went black and Frank heard himself shouting. He dove on Jake, grabbing him by the shoulders and knocking him down onto the cast-iron dome. They landed hard and scary, with Jake’s face taking the weight of their fall as they slid toward the edge out of control. The cast-iron felt cold and Frank pawed at its slippery surface until they finally managed to stop. He could feel Jake’s body wriggling beneath him. He could see him pulling the gun free and struggling to point the muzzle at his chest.
Frank’s hand closed around the barrel. He saw blood spewing from Jake’s nose and guessed that it was broken. As Frank struggled for control of the gun, he reached out with his free hand and slammed it into Jake’s nose. Jake let out a shriek and his body buckled. When Frank noticed a flash, he turned and saw Linda striking Jake’s wrist.
The gun popped out, sliding down the dome into the void below. Frank released the pressure on Jake’s nose and held him down until he became still. Without a gun it was over, and Frank let go of the man and backed away.
Jake stared at him for several moments without moving, almost as if he didn’t know what to do. As he started to get up, he slipped and lost his balance. A moment passed, the panic blooming in his eyes and across his face. Frank lunged forward and caught his sleeve. He could see the edge. They were almost on it.
“My hand,” Frank said. “Take my hand.”
Jake made a quick grab for Frank’s hand, but missed, both men sliding another two feet toward the edge. Jake’s sleeve ripped. He looked at Frank and then lowered his eyes. Frank followed his gaze to his shirt pocket and the DVD labeled
Meet Mel Merdock
.
“Grab my hand,” Frank shouted at him.
Jake reached out, pulling his sleeve free as his fingers dug into Frank’s pocket and snatched the disk. He smiled as he gazed at it. But then his body arched back and dropped. He clawed at the dome’s glassy surface with his free hand, pumping his legs hopelessly until gravity had its way with him and he vanished over the side. His scream was hideous. The sound of his body bouncing off the roof and hitting the ground below even worse.
Frank and Linda traded looks. After a long stretch of silence, they worked their way back to the steps and started down. But as the dome straightened out, Frank saw Norman halfway up, blocking their way and glaring at him.
“I don’t like heights,” Norman said in a weak voice.
Frank continued down the steps until he reached Merdock’s bodyguard. The thick-necked man clung to the narrow steps, appeared panic stricken and started to shriek.
“What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Where’s Jake?”
“He took the short cut,” Frank said. “Now climb down.”
“But I can’t. I can’t. Please. I won’t bother you. I swear I won’t. You’ve got to get me out of this.”
Frank looked at him without sympathy. He pulled Norman aside, reaching beneath the man’s jacket for his gun. After he checked the mag, Frank shoved the pistol beneath his belt and let Linda pass them. Once she was safe, he pushed Norman back into the steps and followed her down.
Chapter 76
It was beginning to rain.
They found Jake’s body lying in a pool of blood off the rear terrace. Jake had made a head-first landing without wings. Frank rolled the mangled body over, searching frantically for the disk. The paper sleeve was blood stained and he picked it up. Opening it carefully, he held it to the light and peered inside. Then he shook the pieces of broken plastic onto his palm and stared at them.
The disk had been crushed. The evidence destroyed.
“It’s over,” Linda whispered. “They’ve won. We need lawyers now.”
Someone shouted at them from the rooftop. Frank looked up and saw the U.S. Attorney standing with ten men in suits and a handful of police in uniforms. The suit with blond hair stood beside the U.S. Attorney with his gun drawn. Frank looked back at the U.S. Attorney. He couldn’t make out what he was saying. He couldn’t understand why he was yelling. The suit even fired a shot at them. He felt Linda give his hand a tug, pulling him away from Jake’s body. They were running. Fleeing down the steps and across the lawn.
Distant sirens could be heard, closing in on the district.
After three blocks, Frank looked back and saw the U.S. Attorney and his men running off the lawn into the street. Linda pulled him around the corner. They found a crowded bar in the middle of the block and ducked inside. The place was dark and people were packed into the narrow space wall-to-wall. Two TVs were mounted at either end of the bar, broadcasting election night returns. It was a real Beltway crowd with everyone shouting over each other or screaming into their cell phones.
No one noticed them. No one even turned. Not even the bartender, whom Frank guessed would recognize them in spite of their appearance.
Hustling their way into the crowd, they began working toward the back door on the other side of the restrooms. Frank knew the door led to an alley. Across the alley, the real estate was mostly residential and they would be off the streets. When they reached the middle of the room, Frank turned back and saw someone enter the bar. He pushed a man’s head aside and looked past it. It was the suit with the gun, eyeing each face in the room one by one. The U.S. Attorney stood right behind him.
Linda grabbed Frank’s hand, shoving her way through all the people. With the back door within sight, they inched forward and glanced at the TV. It was a live news feed—the president walking out of a Georgetown restaurant with Stewart Brown.
“Mr. President,” the reporter said. “Our exit polls show that you’ve won a majority in the Senate tonight. It looks like a big win for Merdock in Virginia. What’s your reaction to the kind of money he spent?”
The president flashed a smile, the one he only used in front of a TV camera.
“I’m not sure what Mr. Merdock spent,” the president said. “I don’t know him that well and haven’t followed his race that closely. But I’m very pleased about taking the Senate, I can tell you that.”
When the reporter tried to get a second question in, the president shook him off with another phony smile and got into his limousine with Brown. From what Frank could tell, Mel Merdock had won the election and the president and Stewart Brown were pleased with themselves.
The rage started again. It hit Frank like a shock wave, tumbling through his body from head to toe and trying to break out of his chest. Mel Merdock was a senator now.
They reached the door and stepped into the alley. As the door closed, he looked at Linda. Her hair was wet. There was a bruise on her chin. Another below her eye. Then his mind drifted back to the moment Jake had pointed his gun at her. He couldn’t remember whether Jake had fired the gun or not. He looked at her body carefully, examining every inch. When he didn’t see any blood, he double checked the ground beneath her and looked back at her face.