Capitol Offense (Texas Heroines in Peril) (13 page)

She nodded. "I haven't had Italian wine in
two years."

He called in the order.

When the food arrived, Lacy went into the
bathroom while the waiter set up a card table on the balcony. After
helping to set table, the waiter left. Lacy took one last look in
the mirror before coming out. She had donned the baseball cap Mike
had bought her that morning. Too bad she wouldn't look sexy.

Mike scarcely looked up at her. He was
lifting the silver covers off the plates. "Doesn't this look
great?"

Lacy pulled out her own chair and sat
down.

He proceeded to shell the lobsters, without
saying anything. "Go ahead and start eating," he finally told
her.

After their plates were filled, he uncorked
the wine, poured out two glasses, and handed one to Lacy.

By now she had stopped looking at him. The
rustle of nearby treetops diverted her. She looked down at them, a
mixture of the local greens: palms, mesquite and oak.

"It's really lovely here," she said. "And
this is the perfect time to enjoy a meal on the balcony. Twilight.
You can still enjoy the view, yet you don't have to bear the day's
heat."

"Yes, everything's perfect." He reached for
her hand. They sat silently for a few minutes. They were much
closer now than they ever bad been.

He spoke first. "I can't help but think of
Omar Khayyam. 'A jug of wine, a loaf of bread  and
thou."

He looked into Lacy's eyes."And like the
narrator of the poem, I want to take what I can from this short
life." He recited by memory:

Ah, make the most of what we yet may
spend,

Before we too into the Dust descend,

Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,

Sans Wine, Sans Song, Sans Singer, and sans
End.

After a moment's silence, Lacy said,
"Beautiful, but a bit morbid. Since you're in a poetic mood, why
don't you quote something more joyful?"

"There's always an end to joy, hence
sadness."

"I suppose you're right." She nodded slowly,
squeezing his hand. She didn't like the moroseness. Was it a
portent?

They ate in a comfortable silence.

"Michael Talamino, you know you're quite a
paradox. On the one hand you're completely
aloof  romantically. And on the other you recite poetry
like a lovelorn spinster."

"You look beautiful," he interrupted.

It was all he said, yet he had said much
more.

After the meal they cleared away the table,
but remained on the balcony until twilight faded into darkness.
They felt very close, sitting there holding hands. After what could
have been an hour, perhaps more, perhaps less, he said, "I hate to
bring us out of this . . . this comfort zone, but it's time we make
preparations for our...our late-night mission."

The curtain was drawn again. It was not what
she had hoped he would say, yet it was typical of him. Always the
practical one. "I'm sure you must have a well-planned scheme
brewing. Let's have it."

"Well, I do have a scheme, but it's
certainly not elaborate. As a matter of fact, it's so corny I think
it might work, but I don't need to tell you now. That can wait till
we're in the car."

"Oh, the car. Did you have any problems with
it?"

"That was the only easy thing all afternoon.
In a little porcelain box on the countertop between the kitchen and
the garage I found the key to the BMW convertible. "

"I'm glad
one
thing worked out so
well."

A moment later, a look of concern crossed
his face. "You don't have to go tonight. I'm afraid have to."

"Silly thing, I got you into this, and I'm
not about to let you hang yourself with my rope. Absolutely nothing
could keep me away from there tonight. Where's the car?"

"A couple of blocks from here in a parking
garage. Things there seemed so efficiently automated that I felt
the human attendants wouldn't notice people."

"Ver r r ry clever." She had
been stuffing her few possessions into the suitcase. Before closing
the suitcase she dumped in everything from her large, hobo-style
leather purse, then she jammed the bulky drill into her bag.

Her arm nearly gave under the unexpected
weight of the drill in her purse. As they neared the door, Lacy
turned back and gave the room a last look. "I've been happy here,"
she told him.

He smiled down at her. "We'll come back some
time."

God, but she hoped he was right.

They were stepping off the elevator in the
lobby when Lacy saw the back of a familiar-looking redhead at the
desk. Her fingers dug into Mike's arm, her pulse pounded with
fear.

"What's wrong?"

"That redheaded man over at the desk...I
think he's the one," she whispered, her voice uneven.

"Good God, don't let him
see you!" He was trying now to shield her with his body from the
redhead's line of vision. Mike glanced around the lobby "You need
to get the hell out of here." He walked her to the door leading to
the
Paseo del Rio
, shielding her body from the redhead's sight. "Wait for me
on the River Walk near the hump-back bridge."

She nearly ran. She wanted
to get as far away from the hotel and Pete as she could.
He's my assassin
she
kept telling herself. Jim had sent him to kill her.

She prayed for Mike's safety as she crossed
the bridge. She would wait for him on the other side of the
river.

The wait seemed hideously long. When she
finally saw Mike exit the hotel and begin to walk toward the
bridge, she walked to meet him half way, relief pulsing through her
veins. "Well?" she asked.

He sighed. "It was him. He was flashing
around your photo and trying to bribe the desk clerk. He offered
him fifty bucks to let him see the names of those who checked in
during the last day."

She winced.

"If I hadn't been standing there, I'm sure
the guy would have taken the fifty."

"Oh, my god! How did they find out I was in
San Antonio?"

"By tracking me. The guy had my name."

"So they checked airlines and found out you
bought a ticket to San Antonio last night?"

He nodded. "Apparently." He led her to the
street level. "We're getting the hell out of here."

"Where to?"

"We're going to visit the Capitol
building."

Chapter 16

Night was straining to replace twilight. The
street was dimly lit. Any of the tall surrounding buildings could
be hiding the stealthy redhead at this very minute. The eeriness of
the darkened streets frightened Lacy. She was glad when Mike
finally turned into the parking garage.

They drove in silence. Once out of the city
limits, they still did not speak of what they both wanted to
discuss--their trip to Austin and his plan of action.

Few cars were on the road. The poor lighting
and sparsely populated terrain only contributed to Lacy's anxiety.
Under the stark glow of oncoming headlights, the roadside trees had
about them a ghost-like quality that gave Lacy the sensation of
having stumbled into a nightmarish neverland.

Sensing her distress, Mike turned the radio
on to a San Antonio rock station. The loud tunes with their deep
base beat seemed to lift her spirits. She patted his muscular thigh
to let him know she was all right.

"We'd better talk." He smiled and turned off
the radio. "Remember when I told you my plan for gaining access to
the Capitol without alarming the security guards was pretty
corny?"

"Um huh."

"Well, here's the gist of it. We'll park the
car right off the Capitol grounds. Does the building still stay
open until ten?'

"Yep."

"We can't risk them recognizing the
senator's car. We also can't risk them recognizing you. Stick your
hair up in a pony tail and smash that baseball cap I got you on
your head. We need to play the tourist bit, taking a romantic
stroll through the hallowed halls. We walk in arm-in-arm, careful
that they don't get a look at your face. We'll look at the statues
and pictures and all. Then we'll scan the newsstand near the
guards' station. That's where it will happen."

"What?"

"That's where I'm going to feign a heart
attack."

"Oh, brother."

"I know it sound crazy and risky, but I
think there's a pretty good chance of it working. Do you have any
aspirins in your purse?"

"Yes. Do you need one?"

"Not now. At the Capitol."

"I'm afraid you've confounded me
terribly."

"I suppose I have. I need the aspirins for
when I fake the attack. You're supposed to say you have to run to
the car for my nitroglycerin pills. You'll substitute aspirins for
nitro. Instead of going to the car, though, you go to McNally's
office. Hopefully, the guy who monitors the closed circuit
television will have come to our rescue so you'll have a clear time
of it. You've got the key to McNally's office?"

"Yes. To where his secretaries receive
people."

"Can you get the key to his office from his
secretary's desk drawer and let yourself into his office?"

"Just one problem. His desk is always
locked."

"In the course of my duties, I've learned a
little about lock picking," he said with exaggeration.

"All right, Houdini."

"Actually, I was kidding. I know nothing of
lock picking, but I think the drill might do the trick. You drill
out the portion of wood which surrounds the lock on the top middle
drawer." After a few minutes she said, "You know, I think your
crazy plan might work."

Smiling, he switched the radio back on and
continued driving fast. The speedometer reached eighty. "I'd like
to make it by midnight."

"Don't go past eighty, please. You don't
want to get stopped for speeding. It might prove embarrassing with
a stolen car."

"Yes, ma'am."

In spite of Mike's jovial facade, she still
worried about their mission. "Mike, what will we do with the
evidence--if we get it tonight?"

"I'll turn it over to my friends in the FBI.
Once I've got evidence, I don't mind making a big stir. But you
know from your own experience, you don't make waves until you put
the culprits behind bars. And only tangible evidence can do
that."

With plenty of time to spare before
midnight, they saw the lighted dome of the Capitol building. It was
another twenty minutes, however, before they neared the Capitol
grounds.

Chapter 17

Things went as Mike had predicted. They
parked at the foot of the Capitol, not on the grounds but on
Congress Avenue. The downtown area was deserted but well lit. Hand
in hand, they walked up the landscaped grounds, the golden glow of
the capitol's lighted dome arched against the black sky. Wearing
baggy jeans, reading glasses, the Alamo T-shirt, and baseball cap,
Lacy began to shiver. Mike put his arm around her.

Together, they mounted the granite steps and
passed through the huge doors. Though Lacy had been here at night
countless times, it was like she was seeing the magnificent
building for the first time. She and Mike seemed so insignificant.
Mere specks of dust on the dimly lit terrazzo hallways that were
here a century and a half ago and would be here the next century.
They stopped to look at massive portraits, Lacy careful to use Mike
's body to shield her face from view of anyone who might happen
in.

The voices of the guards in the next room
echoed in the towering halls. Apparently Mike and Lacy had been
dismissed as tourists. Arm in arm, they browsed through history's
memorabilia, coming at last to a halt at the newsstands which
displayed the state's major daily newspapers as well as the
principle weeklies.

When three guards left the monitoring
station to check the halls, Mike grabbed at his chest.

Lacy shrieked and darted toward him as he
crouched to the floor. She fell to her knees beside him.

Just as Mike had anticipated, the man
monitoring the screens left his station to give aid to Mike. Within
seconds, several guards surrounded the crouched couple.

"Honey, where are your pills?" Lacy asked.
Then she screamed out, "Oh, my God, they're in the car." She sprang
to her feet and ran off, calling over her shoulder, "I'll be right
back with the pills. Hold on."

Off she ran. Only, she turned, and with
speed she never knew she had, ran up the stairs, and down the
darkened halls to McNally's office without encountering anyone.

Quickly, she took the key from her purse,
unlocked the massive door, and stepped in. Groping in total
darkness, she managed, with the aid of a mental picture firmly
impressed on her brain from hundreds of visits here, to find Vera's
desk. She fingered its smooth oak. The drawer was not locked and
opened easily. Fumbling, she found the key to McNally's office.

Still stepping cautiously in the dark, she
guided herself to where she thought the door to McNally's office
was. Blank wall. Sliding against the wall, taking it slowly, she
soon came to the door and inserted the key into the lock. It opened
with no trouble.

This room was lighted from the generous
windows. She approached the desk and tried the top drawer on the
off chance that McNally had left it unlocked. It was locked. After
searching in the dismal shadows, she found an electrical outlet and
plugged in the cord to the drill.

Before turning on the drill's switch, her
stomach knotted. She knew a certain amount of noise would accompany
the drilling, but, weighing the odds again, felt her chances of
survival would be greater with Jim Chambers behind bars. And this
evidence should guarantee her safety. Without it, she was dead
meat.

With sweating hands, she turned on the drill
and quickly bore away a v shaped wedge on the portion of the
drawer surrounding the lock. The wedge slipped away in a few
seconds, and the drawer freely slid back and forth.