The Prisoner - Carlos J. Cortes [162]
Outside, like a scene from Dante’s Inferno, a low mist had fallen on the road. The ghostly soldiers in their black fatigues turned on their heels, moving toward their vehicles through swirling smoke redolent of cordite and burned rubber.
“Can I have it back?”
Laurel gazed, realized she was gripping his hand, and immediately let go. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” He squinted. “The Capitol is that way.” He nodded toward the next intersection and, giving wide berth to the burning vehicle, turned toward the young man waiting with his shoulder bag.
chapter 57
10:12
The view past the heavy brocaded curtains and sheers framing the window was different from what Odelle Marino remembered. The grass stretching past the granite monolith of the fountain built over the Senate garage seemed dull, as if all color had been leached from it. Even the lion-head spouts on the fountain looked somber. In the distance, blurry through a gauzy morning mist, the rectangular mass of the Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon also appeared featureless and dull.
Yes, today Capitol Hill looked different—not so much a place of glory and recognition but of reckoning. I have nothing to worry about; everything is under control. She turned and panned slowly across the magnificent room, obviously not an office despite its furniture: a desk with two easy chairs, and two sofas flanking a low table framed by the backdrop of twin windows. No doubt the room was used as an antechamber for meetings or a sweat room for witnesses and experts to cool their heels. That she had been made to wait for a shamefully long time was something she had filed away in her repository of scores to settle.
After a slight rap, the door opened and a slender, immaculately groomed young man with half-closed eyes, whose badge read Anthony, stood straight. “They are waiting for you, madam.”
Although both she and Vinson had been summoned, the committee wanted them in separately. Genia Warren, the little bitch, was also supposed to appear before the committee, but so far she was nowhere to be seen. Odelle glanced at the orderly, then did a double take. The sleepy-lidded young man was looking around with the calculating poise of a professional killer. Only an idiot would fail to recognize a superbly trained professional. She stifled an inward curse before turning toward Vinson Duran. They had been contained for the best part of an hour in the Russell Senate Office Building. Vinson glanced at his cellular-phone screen and pressed his lips together into a thin line.
Still no news. Nikola had demanded full authority over the DHS FDU units to oversee the mopping up. Yes, demanded was the correct term. The man was becoming hectoring in his old age and had probably outlived his usefulness. One thing at a time.
“Give me a minute.” The inquisitors can also wait, she thought.
“Yes, madam.” The young man nodded and left the room, softly pulling the door behind him.
“Wait. Have the sergeant at arms come over.” Odelle cocked her head but didn’t turn to face the orderly. “Please,” she added, as an afterthought.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The device in Vinson’s hands pinged and he lowered his face to it, as if closeness could speed reception. Odelle clenched her hands for an instant, eyes on the grass outside, marshalling her body language to disguise her trepidation.
“Done,” Vinson said, his face creasing into a cockeyed smile. “A van was stopped at a checkpoint on Rhode Island Avenue, halfway to the ABC building.”
“Spare me the geography,” she snapped.
He didn’t raise his eyes from the tiny screen. “From the video feed, the scanner positively identified Lukas Hurley, Raul Osborne, and Laurel Cole with over ninety percent certainty and Eliot Russo with over fifty percent.”
“Why only fifty percent?”
“The man was prone on a stretcher and wrapped in blankets. Reasonable, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.” The tightness in