Storms rode the fast wind and in the wind rode everything that wasn’t held fast. Loose clothing whipped around solid limbs, including Charles’s jacket and the sleeves and legs of Patrick White’s dark suit, standing on the front steps of the shop.
“Mr. White!” Charles’s voice was whipped by the wind, too. “What can I do for you?”
“We need to talk,” Mr. White said. He had no smile.
“Just a moment, and I’ll open the door.”
He turned the key and stepped into the abrupt tranquility. He turned the lights on and the alarm off. Mr. White turned the tranquility off.
“I’ve come to warn you,” he said. He was in the center of the room, an emotional whirlwind. Every volume on the shelves was watching him.
“About what?” Charles said, trying to get some of the attention for himself.
“Borchard. He’s getting ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“His next murder.”
The doorknob rattled.
Patrick White spun to face it. His back was now toward the counter, but Charles could still tell what his expression was because it was mirrored in Alice’s face as she opened the door. There was a brief motionless moment, and then the wind hurled Alice over the threshold and almost into Mr. White’s arms.
“Good morning, Alice,” Charles said at his calmest.
Her keel evened, and she managed to get around the visitor and to safety behind the counter. “Good morning, Mr. Beale.”
Charles had stepped forward and faced the bloodshot eyes of the storm.
“Let’s go downstairs,” he said at his even calmer calmest.
The books in the basement noticed Patrick White, but they were less impressionable. They knew human nature; they took his measure and then returned to their own business.
“Mr. White. Please, sit down.”
The judge took his seat at the bench, and Charles slid around to his own chair behind the dock.
“Now,” Charles said. “I will be candid. You’ve come four times now to rail against John Borchard. I want you to understand that I don’t know if anything you’ve said is true. These accusations are very serious and you could get in trouble for making them. I also don’t know why you’re making them to me.”
But Mr. White was gone, his jaw slack, and his blank eyes staring far away. Charles turned toward where he was looking, but the view was hidden.
He chose not to wait for the return. “Mr. White?”
“It’s you.”
Charles lost focus himself for a moment. “What?”
“He’s going to kill you.” Then the stare was on him full and ferocious. Charles’s was still foggy.
“I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it. Believe it or die. You’ll die if you don’t believe it.”
“I still don’t.”
“Then it won’t be my fault.” He shuddered in frustration. “I’ve done everything I can. I’m trying to save your life.”
Charles wavered. “Why would he want to kill anyone?”
“He’s mad.”
Charles tried wavering in a different direction. “What makes you think he would want to do anything to me?”
“He’s building a bomb.”
Even the books were now paying attention again.
“How do you know?” Charles asked.
“I’ve seen him.”
“You’ve seen John Borchard build a bomb?”
“Yes. I’ve been watching him. Look at this.”
He opened his suit jacket and withdrew two folded sheets of paper. All eyes were on them as he flattened them out on the desk.
Each was a photograph of a book, the same book on the same dark, heavily grained wood surface, with the corner of a brass penholder. The book was closed in one picture and open in the other. The closed book was a browned and aged antique, identical to many in the room watching them.
“The Kant,” Charles said.
“He can!” Patrick White said. “He is! See?”
The open book showed the yellowed pages cut, not in a rectangle as the Locke had been, but in a rounded, irregular shape. Exactly fitted inside was a black device, with one red and one gray button. The pictures were enlarged and grainy but still clear enough.
“Where did you get these?”
“I took them,” Mr. White said, smirking. “Now you believe me?”
“I don’t understand what they mean.”
“He’s making a bomb. What else could it be?”
“It can’t be.” Charles was still reacting slowly.
“And who else would it be for? An antique book! It’s for you!”
“Where did he get it?” Charles was speaking to himself. Patrick Henry White answered for him.
“It’s what he’s going to do with it that matters. But we can stop him. I couldn’t stop him before. This time I will.”
“Wait,” Charles said. “Let me think.”
For once Mr. White was the one left behind. Charles stared at the pictures.
“What are you going to do?” he asked finally.
“I’m going to stop him.”
“How?”
Suddenly, Patrick White stood. He took the papers from the desk and stuffed them away.
“Where are you going?” Charles said.
“I see what you’re doing,” Mr. White said. “He’s got you. Hasn’t he? If I tell you anything, you’ll go to him. He has you in his control.”
“But…” Charles shook his head. “If I’m on his side, why would he want to kill me?”
But Mr. White was beyond answering. “It’s all too late, anyway. He has everyone else on his side. Everyone else but one.”
“Who? Karen Liu?”
“Borchard has her, too.” Then he was on the stairs, and Charles hurried after him. He caught up halfway across the showroom. Alice shrank back into a corner behind the counter.
“Wait,” Charles said.
Patrick White stopped. “What?”
“You have no right.”
“No right? For what?”
“To do anything to John Borchard.”
“After what he’s done to me? Who else will?”
“You are destroying yourself, Mr. White.”
“I’m already destroyed.”
Before Charles could answer, he threw the door open and let himself out. But the door didn’t slam shut behind him. A customer was coming in, an older woman, in high heels and cashmere sweater and blue jeans. She shut the door softly and smiled sweetly.
“Excuse me,” she said, “but would you have any Greek tragedies?”
“Alice said you were in the basement with someone,” Dorothy said. She looked at him more closely. “And you look rather white.”
“It’s a Patrick White-white.”
“He was here again?”
“Very much. I’m worried, Dorothy. I think he’s going to do something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it serious, Charles?”
“I hope not.”
“What did he say?”
Charles took a slow and deep breath. For a moment he was seeing something far beyond the room, and then he was seeing only Dorothy.
“Nothing specific. Dear, I’ll be out for the rest of the morning. I’m going to talk to John Borchard.”
“Was Mr. White saying more wild things about him?”
“Yes. That’s what it mainly was.” He stood. The wind rattled the window. “I think I’ll take Angelo with me.”
“Sit up here,” Charles said.
Angelo shrugged, and closed the back car door and opened the front. Even that door was quiet closing by his hand.
“How do you do that?” Charles asked.
“How to do what?”
“How are you always so quiet?”
“That’s not a how you do.”
“Everything you do is silent.”
“You just don’t be noisy.”
For a while Charles was not noisy. Then he said, “I’m trying to decide if that’s not an answer or if it is.”
Angelo said nothing else, and in the car it was quiet.
“That building is it,” Angelo said, pointing. Charles pushed through the other cars into the left lane and turned into the parking lot. He parked at the front door. The first floor was painted cinder block. Above and to the side was sheet metal. The sign said Tyson Estate Agents.
“Hello?” Charles looked through the front room of two metal desks and cabinets.
“Just a minute,” a voice said from a hall. Charles waited. Angelo stood.
A man in canvas work pants and a flannel shirt sauntered in. He frowned thoughtfully at Angelo.
“There’s no package. Really.”
Charles frowned thoughtfully back. “There is,” he said. “But actually a different package. I wonder if I could speak to the lady who works here?”
“Jane! The guy’s back again for that package.”
A moment later, she entered. She wasn’t in a gray suit as he’d seen her before, but she was obviously in charge, and obviously very blond.
“Hi.”
“Hello,” Charles said. “You don’t remember me, but I’ve seen you before.”
“Oh? Where?” She sat at a desk.
“About two weeks ago. My name is Charles Beale, and I was at the auction of Derek Bastien’s estate.”
The woman’s expression changed to annoyance. “Are you police?”
“No. I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong.”
“I know I haven’t. What do you want?”
“I want to see the desk you bought.”
“Do you have a key?”
“No.”
“Sorry. I can’t let you into someone else’s room.”
“That’s fine. I just wanted to make sure first that it was here. We’ll have a key here in a few minutes. May I use your telephone?”
“Go ahead.”
He dialed. “John Borchard, please.” Then after many waits, he said, “Would you please get a message to him? Tell him Charles Beale is calling from Tyson Estate Agents, and it is extremely important. I’ll wait.”
It wasn’t a very long wait.
“Charles. This is John.”
“I’m very sorry to interrupt you, but we need to talk, urgently. Could you come meet me here?”
There was a last wait, different from the ones before because of the heavy breathing at the other end.
“You are at the warehouse?” John said.
“Yes.”
“I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
The front door opened.
Charles was sitting, waiting, and Angelo was leaning against the wall beside him.
“Mr. Borchard. Thank you for coming.”
John Borchard’s face had room for many emotions. Anger was in his jaw, annoyance in the set of his mouth, and menace over the expanse of his forehead. Deep in his eyes there was worry.
“Charles,” he said, and all the emotions were in his voice as well. “Well. Why did you come here? Why didn’t you just call me? We could have talked without the dramatic effects.”
“I thought it would help us both to be truthful.”
“Perhaps. And why now?”
“Patrick White came to see me this morning. And I had another reason for coming here, John. I want to see the desk.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
“I do want to.”
At first, annoyance was winning. But not for long.
“All right.”
Blond Jane had only watched so far, but now she stood to lead the way to the hall and back, past locked metal doors in whitewashed walls to a door like all the others.
John Borchard unlocked it.
“Go ahead.”
Jane retreated. Charles entered with the quiet shadow of Angelo close. John came in last.
The room was large, cinder block, cement, gray and empty, almost. Only the desk was in it, in the center, its rich dark wood and ornament in blunt tension with its prison. Its back panels had been roughly removed and leaned against it.
An intricate mechanism enclosed the exposed back of the drawers on one side.
Charles moved to the front of the desk and respectfully pushed the two left drawers in an inch, then pulled the lower drawer out. John Borchard watched. The box, no longer hidden, obeyed and came out with the drawer.
“That would have been helpful to know,” John Borchard said. Annoyance was back, with real anger just beside it. “I suppose Derek showed you how it worked?” And then threat, a new expression not yet seen, appeared. “There is a great deal you need to explain to me, Charles.”
But Charles was looking at the wooden box. It matched the desk perfectly. The stain was the same, the wood was the same, and even the joints were the same grooves and slots as the antique drawer. The only difference was that it wasn’t as worn as the antique.
“It’s beautiful work,” Charles said. The box was empty.
“Yes, it is all very unfortunate.”
“Yes, very. Do you know who made it?”
“The drawer? No.”
“The desk itself,” Charles said.
“No.”
Charles moved slowly around it, stooping and peering. “It doesn’t say.” He felt the smoothness of the wood and the tight joining of the panels. Then he stood. “Now I’d like to see the papers.”
“I won’t allow that, Charles. Absolutely not.”
“You’ll need to, John. We’re going to talk through this, all of it. You have as much to explain as I do.”
His lower lip was quivering, and whatever emotion he was trying to show was incomplete without that part under control.
“They’re at my house.”
“Then let’s go.”
John Borchard held the door for Charles, and then locked it. Angelo barely got out before it closed; John had ignored him completely.
Charles twisted through the tangles of suburban roads, John Borchard’s heavy silver Cadillac guiding him.
“You are making that man mad,” Angelo said.
“Yes. It’s unavoidable.”
“That man, you should be careful with him. Does he have friends?”
“You mean his gang? No, there won’t be anyone at his house. I know you wouldn’t follow someone into his base like this, but I think he is a man who works on his own.”
Angelo nodded. “I think he is. You are going into his house?”
“I expect so.”
“I will not go in.”
“That’s probably best. He’ll be more willing to talk with just me alone. He’s in a difficult position and he needs my help, Angelo. I want to get information from him, but even more, I want to help him.”
Finally they came to a driveway on a very new street of very large houses. Where Derek’s house had been a painting, these were billboards. The landscaping was machined and the architecture generated.
John Borchard stood waiting in the driveway.
“Here we are,” he said as Charles stepped from his car. “My wife is away for the morning.”
“It’s a very nice neighborhood, John.”
“Please come in.”
Angelo stayed in the front seat. John led Charles through the garage, not the front door, into an extensive kitchen of hard, polished surfaces, and through a dining room of designed colors and shapes, and a hallway of nothing comfortable, and to an office of deep and rich pretense, with nothing anywhere softened or wizened by any age.
“Please sit down.”
Charles sat in a chair as plush as those in the Justice Department office. A clock ticked. Charles folded his hands.
“I am very disturbed,” John Borchard said from behind his desk. Whether he wasn’t trying, or the novelty had worn off, his face seemed less expressive. It was merely stern. “Charles, I accepted you for who you said you were and what you said you were doing. You gave no indication that you were anything but a friend of Derek’s, simply looking at his life. But now it is obvious that you were misleading me.”
“I apologize,” Charles said. “However. Caution has been necessary, and John, I don’t believe you were simply accepting me as Derek’s friend. You assumed much more than that.”
“And so I was correct. Then let’s start over.” John forced a forced smile. “And let’s start with Derek’s desk. How did you know about it?”
“I really didn’t know anything about it at the time of the auction two weeks ago. Of course, everyone saw the bidding. The desk was worth over a hundred thousand dollars to two different people.”
“But Derek had showed you the drawer?”
“No.”
“Then how did you know about it?”
“That came later, and I’m under an obligation to not discuss it. But I did find out about the drawer, and about what it might have contained.”
“And what do you think it might have contained?” John asked.
“I think caution is still in order,” Charles said. “Instead, I’ll mention Patrick White.”
“I’ve warned you already to not listen to him.”
“I know that he is mistaken about you, John. But someone threatened him and then carried out their threat. Someone.”
“Apparently,” John said.
“I believe it was Derek Bastien.”
“Why?”
“I’ll just say I’ve gotten to know Derek very well since he died. But that is what I think Derek kept in his desk.”
“Evidence against Patrick White?”
“More than just Mr. White. And, John, I think you must have known what he was doing.”
“What makes you think that, Charles?”
“Because you paid a hundred and five thousand dollars to get his desk.”
John Borchard’s face was out of control for a moment with a bewildering array of worries, angers and even bewilderments.
“But how did you know that I did? You’re talking in circles.”
“I guessed. At least two people knew about the drawer, to bid so high for it. Who else would it have been? You, or Karen Liu, or Patrick White. Possibly others. Mr. White didn’t suspect Derek at all, and I don’t believe Karen Liu did either. But Derek worked for you, and his interests in blackmail coincided very closely with yours. It seemed reasonable that you would know what he was doing. And not many people would have been close enough to him to specifically know about the drawer.”
“But you were still guessing.”
“I was guessing. I guessed that someone would get a list of agents from the auction house, which turned out to be true. Was that how you found Jane?”
“That isn’t important.”
“It seemed in character, though. So when I found her, I had a chance to try out my guess. If you hadn’t responded the way you did, I would have tried Karen Liu next. Besides that, your questions about Derek’s books were rather transparent.”
“Yes, his books.” John was back on firmer ground. “My questions were transparent. You could have answered me plainly.”
“Why were you interested in his books?” Charles said.
This time, the expressions progressed through concentration, indecision, calculation, and finally firm resolution. John settled deep into his chair’s padding. The final display of eyebrows, chin and lips was camaraderie and confiding.
“All right, Charles. I see that we need to work cooperatively here. I think we’re working toward the same goal, and we’ll need each other’s help to get there.” He leaned forward for a more intimate discussion. “Yes, I was aware of Derek’s activities, but only slightly. I did see his drawer once and I knew what he had in it. I didn’t ask for specifics. I only knew that he had some leverage over Karen Liu.”
“So, it was unexpected when Patrick White began accusing you of blackmail?”
“Absolutely. I hadn’t known that Derek also had incriminating evidence about him. It didn’t take me long to realize what had happened, though. Derek engineered his downfall and made him think it had been me who did it.”
“And that made it imperative for you to get the rest of his papers,” Charles said.
“Exactly. Absolutely. I had to know what other schemes he had going.”
“Couldn’t you have gone to the police?”
“No. Not until I knew myself what was in the papers.”
“And what was?” Charles asked.
“Too much.” John grimaced. “And not enough. There were files on more people than I would have imagined, but the specific ones I was looking for were missing. Charles, my guess is that you have the papers that I don’t.”
Charles nodded. “I do have some papers.”
“They were in one of the books?”
“Yes.”
“So I was right,” John said. “And that’s how you became involved. Well, Charles, I would like to see them.”
“You should, John. And I’d like to see the papers you have.”
Their solidarity was shaken. John frowned.
“That would worry me,” he said. “The papers concern a number of people. I’m sure they wouldn’t want you to see them.”
“They will never know that I have.”
“It makes me wonder how you will use the information in them.”
“I won’t.”
“Then why even look, Charles? It would be better if you didn’t. You don’t know most of them. They are his colleagues at work and people he knew socially. I have compelling reason to know, because I need to understand what damage has been done, and how it can be repaired. That’s my responsibility as Derek’s superior in the Department. I don’t understand why you need to see them.”
“John, it isn’t that I want to. I also have my own compelling reason, but I can’t tell you what it is.”
John was not pleased. “A compelling reason?”
“I can’t cooperate further until I’ve seen them.”
John Borchard would have been a poor poker player. It was obvious he was going to fold, even as he tried to bluff.
“Tell me what you’re looking for. I can tell you if you’d find it.”
“I don’t know. I have to look for myself.”
“Oh, very well!” For the moment, they were not friends. “I’ll ask you to excuse me for a moment.”
“Of course.” Charles stood to leave. “I’m sorry, John. I really don’t want to see them. But I have to.” He stepped outside.
The brief passage of the hall earlier had been enough to appreciate it. Now he had a much longer opportunity as three minutes passed. It was surprising how poor the Borchards’ taste was; everything was expensive, but nothing was valuable. There was no feel to any of the house. The only consistency to any of the furniture was how soft the seats were, and the severe hardness of everything else.
The door opened.
“Please, come in.”
A stack of folders was on the desk, about two inches high.
“It isn’t as many as it looks,” John said. “Each one is in its own folder. But there are still forty-six in all.”
The folders were unmarked. Charles took the first and set it down off the stack onto the desk’s surface. The wood was dark and heavily grained. He pushed a brass penholder out of the way.
Then he glanced up at a curtained window behind the desk chair.
“Need more light?” John said. “I sometimes do.” He opened the curtains.
Charles looked out into the backyard. The black windows of the house behind them looked directly down and in.
Charles turned back to the folder. It held only a single page: a hotel bill from a Las Vegas resort, with a name and date.
“Nothing illegal,” John Borchard said. “That is my peer, the other Deputy Assistant A.G. for Legislative Affairs. But he wouldn’t want it known that he frequents casinos. He’s quite a straight arrow.”
Charles opened the next folder.
“And that is illegal,” John said.
“I don’t know what it is. A prescription?”
“For a steroid. That is our secretary. Her son is a college football player.”
He opened the third folder. It was a two-thousand-dollar car repair bill.
“That is our personnel manager’s wife. I casually asked him if he’d had any automobile problems lately, and he hadn’t.”
“So she wrecked her car and hid it from her husband. That’s hardly blackmail material.”
“Most of them aren’t. And there isn’t much need to blackmail your own secretary.”
Charles opened another folder.
“Oh, dear!” The page had a dozen credit card charges from a hamburger restaurant.
“I didn’t know that name,” John said. “So I looked it up. He is the owner of a vegetarian restaurant that Derek frequented.”
“That’s absurd,” Charles said.
“That is probably the most so. It’s quite a collection. Some are illegal, some immoral.”
“And some merely fattening.” Charles sighed. “What a strange collection.”
“The papers?”
“The people. You were right, John. He did collect people. Is this all the folders?” Charles asked.
“That’s all of them.”
“I need to look at each one.”
“Then go ahead.”
One by one he looked at the single pages, some for only a few seconds, some longer. John was silent, and the clock ticked. Fifteen minutes later he closed the last folder.
“Well,” he said.
“Not a pretty picture,” John said.
“Not at all. Of course, I don’t know what many of them mean.”
“Many of them, I did know. Most of the others I’ve found out what they mean. There are five that are still unclear.”
“John, are there any people in your office that you’ll have to take action about?”
“There may be. That will take a great deal of judgment.”
“Their careers are in your hands,” Charles said, pushing the stack of folders back toward John.
“They’ve made their own decisions. My judgment will have to be what is best for the Department. And now, Charles, did you find what you were looking for?”
Charles considered. “I think I did.”
“Then I would like to show you something else that was in the hidden drawer of the desk.” He took a small wrapped package from a desk drawer. He undid the tape and brown paper and held out an antique book.
“It’s a Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant,” he said. “But I’m sure you knew that.”
“Yes, I know the book.” Charles held the book closed.
“Which brings us to the subject of books. At first, when you came to me, I thought you might have been supplying Derek with some of his information, and you were offering to do the same for me. Then I went through the papers and I realized there were some missing. You’ve obviously noticed there is no mention among these of Karen Liu or Patrick White.”
“Or you.”
“Yes. Or me,” John said. “So I had to assume those papers were elsewhere. If you open that book, you’ll understand why I finally guessed that you had them.”
Charles kept the book closed. “I really had no inkling there was anything in the books when I bought them at the auction.”
“If I had known,” John said, “you can be sure that you would not have bought them. But please, open it.”
“I assume it’s hollow.”
“Yes, it is. But I want you to see what is in it.”
“It was a shock, John, seeing the first one. I’m perhaps sentimental, but I don’t want to see another antique ruined.”
John shrugged. “I guessed what a hollowed book might mean, and when Derek’s bookseller came calling, I felt my guess was confirmed. I knew the papers had to be somewhere-especially Patrick White’s. So, Charles, I would like to see the papers you have.”
“I don’t have them with me, of course. I can tell you that Patrick White’s is just a title page copied from the University of Virginia Honor Court proceedings, with an interior page number written on it. A person would have to get those proceedings and look at that inside page to make any sense of it.”
“Hardly incriminating at all if someone found it,” John said. “But if a newspaper reporter received a copy and knew it was important, he would quickly get all the details.”
“Which is what happened,” Charles said.
“With the consequences that everyone in Washington knows.”
“And that brings me to the other reason I wanted to talk to you. Patrick White came to me this morning.”
“More of the same, I suppose?”
“More than the same. John, I need to warn you. I think he might try to take justice into his own hands.”
An odd new look came into John’s eyes. It was mostly anger tinged with fear.
“So it has gone too far,” John said. “What did he say?”
“It was vague, but it was very threatening. Last week he told me that you killed Derek.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that.”
“Today he said you were planning to kill again. He said he would stop you. He also said he had someone who would help him.”
“In that case,” John said, “I insist that you look inside that book.” He handed it to Charles.
Charles held it for a moment, feeling its weight and balance. The lettering on the spine was still legible: Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.
Charles opened the book.
The hole cut was smaller than the John Locke, but deeper into the thick volume. Resting in it was the black plastic object, a rounded rectangle, with the two buttons. It also had a speaker grill.
“A recorder?” Charles said.
“A small Dictaphone. A fairly common thing for an administrator to keep in his pocket.”
Charles lifted it out of the book and pushed the Play button.
“Tell me about him,” it rumbled.
Charles jerked in surprise, dropping the device.
“It’s Derek,” he said.
“Yes,” John said. “Derek recorded a conversation. Go ahead. Listen to it.”
He pushed the button again.
“Tell me about him.”
“He called me last week.” It was Patrick White’s voice. “He read about me in the newspaper and he knew it had to be Borchard behind the scandal. He said Borchard’s been after him for a couple months, too.”
“After him? For what?”
“Something in the Justice Department. They’re rivals. It’s the same game-he’s gotten the letters, too.”
“What is this man’s name?”
“He won’t tell me. Maybe you could guess. You know everyone that Borchard does.”
“I don’t know who it would be,” Derek’s voice said.
“He says if he and I work together, we can bring Borchard down.”
“How?”
“That’s all we’ve said. He’ll help us, Derek.”
“I have to know what he’s going to do. I have to know who he is.”
“I’ll find out,” Patrick White said. “But he’s scared. He doesn’t want me to know who he is. But he wants to be part of anything we do.”
And then there was silence.
“That’s all there is,” John Borchard said.
“It must be the same person Patrick White has mentioned to me. Who could they be talking about?”
“That’s what I have to find out!” John said, suddenly vehement. “I have to know who it is. It isn’t just Patrick White. There’s someone else as well. It must be someone else that Derek was blackmailing.”
“Could it be any of these people?” Charles put his hand on the stack of folders.
“It isn’t. I’ve been through all of them. It must be one of the papers you have. That is why I have to see them.” He was standing, pacing in the narrow space of the office.
“Karen Liu?”
“It’s a man. White said he. And this man, he must know more than Patrick White does. He knew that the papers were in Derek’s desk. He’s the person who was bidding against me.”
“Maybe…” Charles said, “maybe I could get Mr. White to tell me.”
“Even if he doesn’t know, he might have some clue. Something that could help me guess. Maybe the man at the auction who did the bidding. He was from New York.”
“Edmund Cane.”
“He might know. But I need to see the papers you have. That might be enough.”
“I’ll show them to you,” Charles said. “And I’ll talk to Mr. White.”
“Do you know where he is?” John asked. “I haven’t been able to find where he’s living.”
“No, I don’t know where he liv-”
First, shaking.
Just afterward sound. Then the sorting of sounds-glass shattering, heavier objects falling. A percussion of air and then heat.
“Get down,” Charles said. John collapsed to the floor.
But there was no more of the sound or motion. Charles stood enough to see out the window. John didn’t move.
The neighboring house was buried in smoke. Charles watched in shock as the gray cleared. An upstairs window was gone, and also most of the wall that had held it, and the hole was black edged and jagged. Flames wavered inside.
“Call the police,” Charles said, but John was immobile. Charles grabbed the telephone and pushed three digits.
“There’s been an explosion,” he said. “The house behind us-what is the address here?”
John didn’t answer.
“I don’t know the address. Whatever this phone number is.”
“Who is calling?” the voice said.
“Charles Beale. I’m at the home of John Borchard in McLean. I don’t know the address.”
“We have your address. What happened?”
“Behind us. The house exploded-something in it-there’s fire and smoke. It was a big explosion.”
“We have help on the way. Has anyone been injured?”
“I don’t know. I think-” The window that had looked directly down on John Borchard’s office was destroyed. “I think someone must have been.”
“Do you see anyone injured?”
“No. I’m calling from the neighbor’s house. No one here was hurt.”
“Mr. Beale, we have help on the way. Stay clear of the fire. Don’t try to go into the house.”
“I won’t. We won’t.”
“That’s all we need now. You can hang up.”
Charles set the telephone down. “John. Are you all right?”
John Borchard was still not moving or speaking. He was on his knees, his mouth was open, his face was paper white, shining with sweat, his breath jerking, his eyes wide.
“John!”
Charles took his shoulder and shook it. The blank eyes suddenly moved.
“It was meant for me,” he said, finally speaking.
“Who lives in that house?”
“Where?”
“The house right behind you!”
“They’re gone. They’ve been gone.”
Charles bent down, face-to-face with John Borchard. “Are you all right?”
John’s face was a sagging ruin. “It was for me! They want to kill me!”
“You’re fine,” Charles said. “Sit up here.”
John heaved himself up into his chair. His face was regaining color and his breath was becoming normal.
“The police!” he said.
“I called them.”
“They’ll see the files.” John staggered to his feet. He pushed aside a small table and groped at the wood paneling behind it. The panel clicked open, uncovering the gray front of a safe.
A bitter smell had infiltrated the room.
“Hey, boss.” Angelo’s voice startled Charles. “Come on, get out of here.”
“No. We’re all right,” Charles said.
John was on his knees, fumbling with the safe door. Finally, sirens were sounding.
“Who did that might come here,” Angelo said.
Charles untangled the words. “No, I don’t think anyone did it. It went off from inside the house.”
“Come on, go!” Angelo’s hiss was urgent and angry. “Get away.”
“We’ll wait for the police, Angelo.”
“Boss, no police!”
“No police,” John Borchard said, suddenly aware of them. The safe was still not open. “Not until I put the files away.”
“Boss,” Angelo pleaded. “Come! The police can’t find me here!” His eyes were wide and white.
“Why are you so afraid?” Charles shouted at him.
A shudder passed from head to feet, and a thin sigh escaped the clenched mouth.
“I am not afraid.”
“Then sit down.”
Slowly the tense body settled into a chair, not sitting but perched.
John was back at the safe, trying to open it. The sirens were close and car doors were opening.