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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] was finished. Really, the only tricky part was easing myself down the half-wall behind the car. The guard in the front booth by the exit arch couldn t see the rear of the limousine, only the front. I d figured that out years earlier, even recommended a change to Speaker Michel. That was my last assignment at Spazi headquarters. Michel hadn t paid any attention, not that he paid much attention to anything but the hauling and machine tool industries, and that might have been why he d lasted one term as Speaker. No Speaker since had paid any attention to the recommendation, either, and that made things easier. So I crouched behind the dark blue limousine and stripped off my coat and vest. There are two ways to use plastique, and most amateurs don t understand that. Instead, they compensate for their lack of knowledge by using enough to destroy a city block, and sometimes don t even get their target. If you do it the right way, there s a surprisingly small radius of destruction, but it s rather effective. Then there was what I was doing, which was to create the impression of damage without doing much. After all, my purpose wasn t really to kill anybody even the Speaker. Page 209 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html Basically it only took a few minutes to turn the vest into a flat sheet of plastique flared around the inside of the rear wheel cover and designed to blow out the wheel and some sheet metal. The gray melded with the undercoat and even covered the timer so that only an expert could tell. I d set the timer for about noon on Tuesday, but it wouldn t really matter one way or the other, so long as the plastique actually exploded. Normally the Speaker s limousine was parked right outside his door at the Capitol, all day long, guarded, of course, just in case he wanted to go somewhere. It didn t matter to me whether the limousine went anywhere or not. The ostensible point of the explosion was to serve notice on behalf of the Spirit Preservation League that the Speaker was vulnerable if he continued his covert war against ghosts. The next set of letters to the press would arrive within the day. After ducking back up to the higher level and wending my way back through one tunnel, I climbed to the main floor of the Garfield Building and exited, lifting my government badge to the bored guard. Nothing ever happens in the Congress; all they ever do is talk. The Speaker really makes the decisions, basically with the help of a few ministers and his personal staff. The guards know most members of Congress have no real power, and it shows. The guard nodded at me, and I walked out and took a trolley back down Independence. After walking to the Stanley, I moved it to another side street south of Independence and had an early supper at a Greek bistro I recalled. The memory was better than the food itself, but that s the way it is with memories sometimes. Of course, the waiters were all different, and I certainly looked different. Then it was time to walk back to the Stanley and get ready. The first piece of business was to get the uniform out of the trunk and change in the back seat. Even if someone saw, what would they see? An off-duty watch officer struggling into his uniform? The second piece of business was to mail the next set of press announcements at the main post centre. Even if they didn t arrive before the explosion, assuming no one detected the plastique, the postmark would show a degree of planning. If the plastique didn t work, I had more left and would have to cook up something else, probably larger and more deadly, like an explosion somewhere in the Capitol. That I could still manage, although I d rather not have to try. Posting the announcements was as simple as driving by the post building next to the shabby Union Station and dropping them in the box. I was becoming ever more glad that I had stocked up on stamps in Styxx before I had left New Bruges. My schedule was getting cramped, to say the least. After posting the second round of classy announcements, I drove out Newfoundland and parked under a tree about a block from where I could see the approach to vanBecton s house. It was dark when a limousine pulled up, the driver opened the door, and Page 210 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html vanBecton stepped out and walked to the house. The limousine departed, and so did I, driving only a few blocks to the Dutch Top Page No 138 colonial that wasn t a house but a power substation. There all I had to do was send a signal. The dull thump, the dust, the puff of smoke, and the house lights going out all around me confirmed that the plastique had done its job, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. But no one went running outside. Cities have so many noises that most people don t notice. Despite the cool evening I was sweating because I had the watch uniform on, except for the hat. There s always someplace in the city where a big tree overhangs a power line, for all the effort to put the lines underground in conduits. On the hills several blocks north of Dupont Circle, off California Street, where the old money that s gone into government service resides, there are more than a few such trees, like the one I had fixed the night before almost next to vanBecton s house. I triggered the second detonator from a block away, and the tree limb crashed across an already dead power line and a not-so-dead wireline serving the vanBecton residence. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |