Archie blurted, startling himself. He was sitting alone in the front seat of his new Pope-Hartfort automobile, across the street from the building that housed the Department of Justice. It was one-thirty in the morning, four days after New Year’s day. Washington D.C. was a freezing ghost town. The members of Congress were still away on their Christmas break. Businesses were locked tight and the streets were slick after a freezing rain. Archie wiped the perspiration from his hands on the front of his sport jacket. The keys to the building were in his pocket. As Chief Military Aide to the President, it wasn’t hard to get them. He crossed the street and walked up to the building’s bronze doors. He replayed the argument for breaking in one more time: that this was a minor moral infraction, overridden by the need to get to the bottom of a murder, Mick Shaughnessy’s murder. He slid the key into the lock. The heavy bronze door opened easily, leading into a cavernous foyer that was dark and freezing cold.
