Free Shall We Tell the President? by Jeffrey Archer

.
Sleep well.’
    ‘And you, Mark. If you can.’
    Mark put the phone down, and immediately
the burden of the day’s events returned. What now? There was nothing
practicable he could do before 8:30, except keep in touch on the radio phone
until he was home. There was no point just sitting there looking out of the
window, feeling helpless, sick, and alone. He went in to Aspirin, told him he
was going home, and that he’d call in every fifteen minute because he was still
anxious to speak to Stames and Calvert. Aspirin
didn’t even look up.
    ‘Fine,’ he said, his mind fully occupied by
the crossword puzzle. He had completed eleven clues, a sure sign it was a quiet
evening.
    Mark drove down Pennsylvania Avenue towards his
apartment. At the first traffic circle, a tourist who didn’t know he had the
right of way was holding up traffic. Damn him, thought Mark. Visitors to Washington who hadn’t
mastered the knack of cutting out at theright turn-off could end up circling round and round many more times
than originally planned.
    Eventuallly , Mark managed to get around the circle and back on Pennsylvania Avenue .
He continued to driveslowly
towards his home, at the Tiber Island
Apartments, his thoughts heavy and anxious. He turned on the car radio for the
midnight news; must take his mind off it somehow. There were no big stories
that night and the newscaster sounded rather bored; the President had held a
press conference about the Gun Control bill, and the situation in South Africa seemed to be getting worse. Then the local news: there had been an automobile
accident on the G. W. Parkway and it involved two cars, both of which were
being hauled out of the river by cranes, under floodlights. One of the cars was
a black Lincoln, the other a blue Ford sedan, according to eyewitnesses, a
married couple from Jacksonville vacationing in
the Washington area. No other details as yet.
    A blue Ford sedan. Although he had not
really been concentrating, it kept repeating itself in his brain - a blue Ford
sedan? Oh no, God, please no. He veered right off 9th Street on to Maine Avenue , narrowly missing a fire
hydrant, and raced back towards Memorial Bridge , where he had been
only two hours before. The roads were clearer now and he was back in a few
minutes. At the scene of the accident the Metropolitan Police were still thick
on the ground and one lane of the G.W. was closed off by barriers. Mark parked
the car on the grassy verge and ran up to the barrier. He showed his FBI
credentials and was taken to the officer in charge; he explained that he feared
one of the cars involved might have been driven by an agent from the FBI. Any
details yet?
    ‘Still haven’t got them out,’ the inspector
replied. ‘We only have two witnesses to the accident, if it was an accident. Apparently
there was some very funny driving going on. They should be up in about thirty
minutes. All you can do is wait.’
    Mark went over to the side of the road to
watch the vast cranes and tiny frogmen groping around in the river under vast
klieg lights. The thirty minute wasn’t thirty minutes; he shivered in the cold,
waiting and watching. It was forty minutes, it was fifty minutes, it was over
an hour before the black Lincoln came out. Inside the car was one body. Cautious man, he was wearing a seat belt.
The police moved in immediately. Mark went back to the officer in charge and
asked how long before the second car.
    ‘Not long. That Lincoln wasn’t your car, then?’
    ‘No,’ said Mark.
    Ten minutes, twenty minutes, he saw the top
of the second car, a dark blue car; he saw the side of the car, one of the
windows fractionally opened; he saw the whole of the car. Two men were in it.
He saw the licence plate. For a second time that night, Mark felt sick. Almost
crying, he ran back to the officer in change and gave the names of the two men
in the car, andthen ran on to a
pay phone at the side of the road. It was a long way. He dialled the number,
checking his