off.
For one insane moment, Buchanan contemplated jumping. He might have
too, except the desire to beat Thornhill was simply too strong. And
that would be the coward’s way out anyway. Buchanan was many things,
but a coward was not one of them.
There was a catwalk that ran across the roof of the Capitol, and it
would take Buchanan to the second part of his journey. Or, more
accurately, his escape. The House wing of the Capitol building had a
similar attic room, which its pages used to raise and lower its flags.
Buchanan quickly went across the catwalk and through the hatch on the
House side. He climbed down the ladder and into the attic room, where
he removed the hard hat and gloves, but kept on the glasses. He pulled
a snap-brim hat from his briefcase and put it on. Pulling up the
collar on the raincoat, he took a deep breath, opened the door to the
attic room and passed through. People milled here and there, but no
one really gave him a second glance.
In another minute he had left the Capitol through a rear doorway known
only to a few veterans of the place. A car was waiting for him there.
A half hour later he was at National Airport, where a private plane,
its twin engines revving, awaited its sole passenger. Here was where
the friend in high places earned his money. The plane received
clearance for takeoff a few minutes later. Soon thereafter Buchanan
looked out the window of the plane as the capital city slowly
disappeared from view. How many times had he seen that sight from the
air?
“Good riddance,” he said under his breath.
CHAPTER 45
THORN HILL WAS HEADING HOME after a very productive day. With Adams
now in the fold, they would soon have Faith Lockhart. The man might
try to dupe them, but Thornhill didn’t think so. He had heard the very
real fear in Adams’s voice. Thank God for families. Yes, all in all,
a productive day. The ringing phone would soon change all that.
“Yes?” Thornhill’s confident look vanished as the man reported to him
that somehow, some way, Danny Buchanan had utterly vanished, from the
very top floor of the Capitol, no less.
“Find him!” Thornhill roared into the phone before slamming it down.
What could the man’s game be? Had he decided to begin his escape a
little early? Or was it for another reason? Had he contacted Lockhart
somehow? That was intensely troubling. Shared information between the
two was not good for Thornhill. He thought back to their meeting in
the car. Buchanan had displayed his usual temper, his little word
games–mere bluster, really–but had otherwise been fairly subdued.
What could have precipitated this latest development?
In his agitation, Thornhill drummed his fingers on the briefcase he had
in his lap. As he looked down at the hard leather, his mouth dropped
open. The briefcase! The damn briefcase! He had provided one for
Buchanan. It had a backup recorder in it. The conversation in the
car. Thornhill admitting he had had the FBI agent killed. Buchanan
had tricked him into betraying himself and then taped him. Taped him
with CIA-issued equipment. That two-faced sonofabitch!
Thornhill grabbed the phone; his fingers were shaking so badly he
misdialed twice. “His briefcase, the tape in it. Find it. And him.
You must get it. You have to get it.”
He dropped the phone and slumped back in the seat. The master
strategist of over a thousand clandestine operations was absolutely
stunned by this development. Buchanan could take him down with this.
He was running loose with the evidence to crush him. But Buchanan
would go down too, had to, there was no way around it.
Wait. The scorpion! The frog! Now it all made sense. Buchanan was
going to go down and take Thornhill with him. The CIA man loosened his
tie, wedged himself into the seat and fought the panic he felt flooding
his body.
This is not how it will end, Robert, he told himself. After
thirty-five years this is not damn well how it’s going to end. Calm
down. Now is when you need to think Now is where you earn your place