The stolen Lincoln was nearly two miles from Pennsylvania Avenue when they heard the dull rumble of the explosion. Reilly didn’t even blink, and Hunter’s only reaction was to switch off the mobile phone he was still holding. He opened the Lincoln’s glove compartment and tossed the phone inside.
‘We won’t need that again,’ he said. ‘I guess Donahue’s little ambush worked out real well, for us if not for him.’
‘His choice,’ Reilly said. ‘If he’d played straight with us, he’d be alive now.’
‘Well, we’ve bought ourselves some time with that diversion,’ Hunter said. ‘A few hours at least.’
Reilly nodded, but didn’t take his eyes off the road. He was keeping the Lincoln as close to the speed limit as possible, trying to get out of Washington as fast as he could.
‘With that blast, every cop in D.C. will be heading for Pennsylvania Avenue,’ Hunter went on. ‘At least I hope they will, which should keep them off our backs.’
‘It’ll take a while for them to sort out what happened in the Ford,’ Reilly said. ‘With the amount of powder we put on the back seat, Donahue woulda been pretty well shredded, I guess. It’s gonna be a hell of a job working out if what’s left is one body or three.’
Hunter snorted. ‘It won’t take them that long,’ he said. ‘When in doubt, they’ll assume the worst, which is that we weren’t a couple of suicide bombers, and that we’re still alive and kicking somewhere. What they won’t know is how we’re travelling, or where we’re going.’
‘They’re not the only ones,’ Reilly said. ‘Just where in hell are we goin’?’
Hunter looked at him. ‘We’re following this through,’ he replied, his voice cold and bleak. ‘I’m following Christy-Lee until either I get her back from the bastards who snatched her, or I know she’s dead. Either way, the trail leads to Nevada, so that’s where we’re going. Have you got any problems with that?’
‘Nope,’ Reilly said. ‘I like the lady as well, and I got nothin’ better to do right now.’
On Donahue’s instructions, dictated by Hunter, road blocks had already been positioned to keep Pennsylvania Avenue closed to traffic and the police simply left them in place. After the blast, officers closed in on the Hoover Building and began checking the ground around the wreckage of the Ford while they waited for the first ambulances to arrive.
The scene outside the FBI Headquarters was one of total devastation over a roughly circular area about seventy yards in diameter. The epicentre was the wreck of the rented Ford. The floor-pan chassis lay flat on the road, but nothing remained of the bodywork apart from the windshield pillars and the two rear wings, which were crumpled and twisted into surrealistically unrecognizable shapes. Even the engine had been blown a few feet forward clear of the wreckage.
Scattered around the chassis was the rest of the car. The heaviest pieces, like the doors, were closest to the wreck, and were still largely recognizable. Lighter debris had been thrown further away, just twisted pieces of steel and torn fabric, unidentifiable.
Donahue had taken the full force of the blast in the centre of his back, and had died instantly. The human body is surprisingly resilient, but Donahue had been sitting unprotected within four feet of a detonation of twenty pounds weight of mixed powder, and his head, torso, arms and upper legs had virtually disintegrated. The area around the Ford was liberally splattered with blood-stained clothing and small pieces of flesh and bone. His shins and feet, shielded to some extent from the blast by the seat squab, had suffered much less damage, and were lying about five feet apart some twenty yards in front of the wreck.
Thirty minutes after the ambulances had arrived and a triage unit had been set up, the figures began to emerge. Apart from the obviously deceased occupant or occupants of the Ford, the smoking remains of which were already being picked over by six FBI forensic experts, there had been no deaths. But several serious injuries had been sustained by evening and night staff in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, caused by flying glass splinters that had speared through shirts, blouses and light jackets.
Myers had regained consciousness, and was spitting fire, not least because he was acutely aware that when the dust finally settled he was the one most likely to be blamed for Donahue’s death. He waved away the medical orderly as soon as he’d bandaged his forehead, and took the elevator back up to his office.
Once inside, he sat down at the desk and rested his head in his hands. His forehead was throbbing like some demented machine from the puncture wounds, and he had the mother of all headaches to go with it. No question, it had been a bitch of a day, and the bad news was it could only get worse. His phone rang and he picked up the handset.
‘Myers,’ he snapped.
‘This is the CommCen, sir. We have an external origin Priority One call for the Director.’
Myers shook his head angrily, then stopped as the throbbing intensified. ‘The Director’s dead, for Christ’s sake.’
‘I know that, sir, but I have no authority to tell that to the caller. And CommCen rules stipulate that a Priority One call must be accepted.’
‘So what the fuck do you want me to do – call a medium?’
The Communications Officer was patient. ‘No sir, but you or an FBI officer of Assistant Director level or above must take the call.’
Myers stared blankly in front of him for a few seconds. He was almost certain that the call would have originated in Nevada, and he wasn’t relishing explaining how he – Myers – had ordered a sniper to open fire on a car driven by the Director, and had then watched as the car blew itself to pieces in front of him.
When he’d first come round, Myers had wondered if by any chance a sniper’s bullet had holed the Ford’s fuel tank, which would mean he could blame someone else, but one look at the wreck had told him that that was a blind alley.
‘OK,’ he said, calm once again. ‘I’ll come down.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
He’d barely replaced the handset when the office door opened and William McGrath walked in. For once, Myers was pleased to see him.
‘I think the source in Nevada is on the line again, sir,’ he said. ‘The CommCen’s holding a Priority One call for the Director.’
Myers paused, then stood up slowly and painfully. He smiled almost apologetically. ‘This is all getting a bit heavy for me,’ he muttered. ‘I know this source said he’d only speak to me or Director Donahue, but I really would appreciate it if you could maybe take over the dialogue.’
McGrath nodded. ‘That’s pretty much what I came to tell you,’ he said. ‘I’ve just got off the line from the White House. I’m authorized to stand-in as Director of the Bureau until a new appointment is announced. That includes handling Omega and liaising with whoever the hell it is pulling the strings down in Nevada.’
He turned back towards the door. ‘Come on. We’d better get down there.’
‘Shit,’ Hunter said. ‘I forgot to ask Donahue about Billy Dole.’
Reilly looked at him. ‘Yeah. What the hell’s a corpse in a field in Montana with a thigh-bone sticking out of its head got to do with a secret clinic in Nevada?’
Hunter shrugged. ‘Well, it’s definitely too late now,’ he said.
He looked at the road ahead. They’d kept off the main roads as far as possible since leaving the centre of Washington D.C., Hunter giving Reilly directions from a tourist map he’d found in the glove compartment of the Lincoln, because the car had no satnav fitted. They’d headed up towards Tacoma Park, then turned west through Chevy Chase and Bethesda, then north-west through Rockville, their route running more or less parallel to Interstate 70.
They’d seen only three police cars since they’d turned off Pennsylvania Avenue, and they’d all been going in the opposite direction, lights flashing and sirens blaring.
‘Lots of roads,’ Reilly had said, ‘only so many cops, and they’ve got a bunch of other things on their minds right now.’
At Gaithersburg Hunter had directed Reilly right, towards Laytonsville, and after about another eight miles left for Goshen.
‘I hope you know where the hell we’re goin’,’ Reilly said, ‘’cause I sure don’t.’
Hunter grunted, his brows furrowed in concentration as he studied the map. Finally he folded it and sat up. He knew they were in the right area. It was just a question of recognizing landmarks.
Myers nodded at the Communications staff officer, who had straightened noticeably when William McGrath walked through the soundproof door of the Centre.
‘Which one?’ Myers asked.
‘Booth Five, sir.’
‘What’s the origin of the call – Nevada again?’
The staff officer nodded.
‘OK,’ McGrath said. ‘Get me an extra headset. We’re both taking this call.’
Thirty seconds later the red light came on outside the closed door of the booth as the call was patched through.
‘This is Myers.’
‘About time. Where’s Donahue?’
‘Director Donahue’s dead,’ McGrath said.
Roger Ketch immediately noted the new voice on the line. ‘Who are you?’
‘William McGrath. I’m acting Director for the time being. Who are you?’
This should be good, Myers thought.
‘You don’t need to know,’ Ketch grated. ‘Jesus, all you suits seem to want is names and numbers.’
‘I need to know who you are,’ McGrath repeated.
‘You don’t need anything from me. I’m running this operation, which means you do what I tell you. Donahue didn’t have a problem with that, so why should you? By the way, how’d he die?’
Myers, sensing McGrath’s increasing irritation, explained what had happened.
‘We don’t know,’ he finished, ‘if Hunter and Reilly died in the explosion as well as the Director.’
Ketch laughed – a short, unpleasant bark. ‘Take my word for it,’ he said, ‘they didn’t. But they’re probably still in your area, which means we’ve still got a chance. OK, Mr. Acting Director McGrath, here’s what I need you to do. You listening?’
‘Yes,’ McGrath said, shortly.
‘There should already be an APB out for these two bastards. Reinforce it by saying that they’re now wanted in connection with the assassination of the Director of the FBI – which has the useful bonus of actually being true. You should have got the background on Reilly by now –’ McGrath looked at Myers, who nodded ‘– so go through it with a fine tooth-comb. Look for anything that we could use against him – family, friends, weaknesses of any sort. Do the same for Hunter, though I don’t think there’s a lot of data available.’
‘Is that it?’
‘No,’ Ketch replied. ‘That’s what you do when you’ve done everything else. First, I want a watch kept at all seaports, airports, railroad and bus stations. I want all roads – that’s every road, not just the Interstates – watched, plus all navigable rivers. I want a blanket of FBI agents to smother D.C. You start in Washington and work your way outwards. We have to find these guys, and then we have to kill them. Failure is not an option.’
There was a brief silence as McGrath digested what he’d heard. ‘Do you realize how many men an operation like that will take? Do you have the slightest idea what you’re asking?’
‘Two things, McGrath. First, I’m not asking, I’m telling. Second, I don’t care. This operation has the highest possible priority. Whatever it takes to achieve, you do it. Whatever other tasks you have to shed to get it done, you dump. If you have to recruit, fire, cripple or kill anybody, from the Vice-President of the United States downwards, you just do it. All other considerations – and I do mean absolutely all other considerations – are secondary. Do I make myself clear?’
Myers stayed silent. It was a real good time, in his opinion, to be just a fly on the wall.
‘You make yourself clear,’ McGrath said, ‘but –’
‘There are no buts, McGrath, and in an hour or so you’ll know why.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Donahue showed you a sealed file, right? Marked “Omega Procedures”?’
McGrath nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I got it out for him as soon as news of that Beaver Creek killing reached us. Why?’
‘You’re the Acting Director. The speed the goddamn wheels turn in Washington it’ll be weeks before a new Director’s appointed, so I authorize you to read the Omega Procedures file. Just you. No-one else, not even Myers.’
Myers tried to look irritated, but was secretly pleased. He had a very, very strong feeling that he really didn’t want to know anything more than he had to about Omega.
‘How can you possibly authorize that?’ McGrath asked. ‘It’s an FBI file with the highest possible security classification.’
Ketch laughed again. ‘Of course I can authorize it,’ he said. ‘I wrote the fucking thing.’
It was almost midnight when Hunter finally spotted what he had been looking for.
‘This is it,’ he said, and directed Reilly to turn off the side road down a narrow track. Leaves and branches brushed the sides of the Lincoln as the car moved slowly over the rutted surface, which was marked by the tires of four-wheel-drive vehicles.
‘OK,’ Reilly said. ‘And where exactly is ‘this’?’
Hunter grinned at him. ‘It’s just a field with a building on it,’ he said.
‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yup. A long, narrow field with a real big building on it.’
Comprehension dawned on Reilly. ‘An airstrip?’
Hunter nodded. ‘I learnt to fly when the Queen employed me – I was in the Royal Navy and ended up flying Sea Harriers. When I was training over at Quantico I got to know the owner of this place – a guy called Dave Charles. I got down here whenever I could and took a few spins in some of the aircraft he had here.’
‘He still around?’
‘Who?’
‘This Charles guy. You gonna persuade him to fly us out of here?’
Hunter shook his head. ‘Nope. I hope the aircraft are still here, but Dave should have gone home long before now. And he wouldn’t fly us out of here without filing a flight plan and all the rest of it.’
‘So what are we doing?’
Hunter looked at him. ‘The plan is for us to find the airfield deserted, for you to break into the hanger using whatever clever little devices you’ve got in that bag of yours, and for us to borrow an aircraft and get the hell out of here.’
‘I know I’ll regret askin’ this, but exactly who’ll be drivin’ the damn thing? You?’
Hunter grinned again, his teeth a white slash in the semi-darkness of the Lincoln. ‘Yup,’ he said. ‘That’ll be me.’
‘Jesus,’ Reilly muttered. ‘Kinda wish I stayed behind in Beaver Creek, or even D.C.’
Ketch had been right. When William McGrath closed the Omega Procedures file some ninety minutes later, he knew exactly why Reilly and Hunter had to be found and killed. What he had read in the file and seen in the package of photographs and on the short video tape must never become public knowledge.
His face ashen, McGrath picked up the file, crossed his office to his personal safe, put the file inside and spun the combination wheel to lock it. Then he went into his bathroom to wash his hands. Even reading it had made him feel unclean, tainted. He was drying his hands when one of the images he’d seen swam into his mind again, and he spent the next eight minutes retching uncontrollably into the toilet.