Shall We Tell the President?

by Jeffrey Archer

  After months of bargaining, bullying, cajoling and threatening the Gun Control bill was at last to be presented to the House for their final approval.

  This was to be the day when Florentyna made an indelible mark on American history. If she achieved nothing else during her term of office she would live to be proud of this single act.

  What could prevent it now? she asked for the thousandth time. And for the thousandth time the same dreadful thought flashed across her mind.

  She dismissed it once again.

  Thursday morning

  10 March

  5:00 A.M.

  The Director woke suddenly. He lay there, frustrated; there was nothing he could do at this hour except look at the ceiling and think, and that didn’t help much. He went over and over in his mind the events of the past six days, always leaving until last the thought of canceling the whole operation, which would probably mean even now that the Senator and his cohorts would get away scot-free. Perhaps they already knew and had disappeared to lick their wounds and prepare for another day. Either way it would remain his problem.

  The Senator woke at 5:35 in a cold sweat—not that he had really slept for more than a few minutes at any one time. It had been an evil night, thunder and lightning and sirens. It was the sirens that had made him sweat. He was even more nervous than he had expected to be; in fact just after he heard three chime he had nearly dialed the Chairman to say that he couldn’t go through with it, despite the consequences that the Chairman had so delicately, but so frequently, adumbrated. But the vision of President Kane dead beside him reminded the Senator that everybody even now could remember exactly where he was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and he himself was never going to be able to forget where he was when Florentyna Kane died. Even that seemed less appalling than the thought of his own name in the headlines, his public image irreparably damaged, and his career ruined. Even so, he nearly called the Chairman, as much for reassurance as anything, despite their agreement that they had contacted each other for the last time until late the following morning, when the Chairman would be in Miami.

  Five men had already died and that had caused only a ripple: President Kane’s death would reverberate around the world.

  The Senator stared out of the window for some time, focusing on nothing, then turned away. He kept looking at his watch, wishing he could stop time. The second hand moved relentlessly—relentlessly towards 10:56. He busied himself with breakfast and the morning paper. The Post informed him that many buildings had caught fire during the night in one of the worst storms in Washington’s history, and the Lubber Run in Virginia had overflowed its banks, causing heavy property damage. There was little mention of President Kane. He wished he could read tomorrow’s papers today.

  The first call the Director received was from Elliott, who informed him that the recent activities of Senators Dexter and Harrison revealed nothing new about the situation—not that the anonymous man knew exactly what the situation was. The Director grumbled to himself, finished his egg—sunny-side up—and read the Post’s description of the demonic weather that had assailed Washington during the night. He glanced out of the window at the day, now clear and dry. A perfect day for an assassination, he thought. The bright day that brings forth the adder. How late could he leave it before letting everyone know everything? The President was scheduled to leave the White House at 10:00 A.M. The Director would have to brief the head of the Secret Service, H. Stuart Knight, long before then and, if necessary, the President at least one hour before that. To hell with it, he would leave it to the last minute and make a full explanation afterward. He was willing to risk his career to catch this pernicious Senator red-handed. But risking the President’s life …

  He drove to the Bureau soon after 6:00. He wanted to be there a full two hours before Andrews to study all the reports he had ordered the evening before. Not many of his senior aides would have had much sleep last night, though they were probably still wondering why. They would know soon enough. His deputy Associate Director for Investigation, his Assistant Director for Planning and Evaluation, and the head of the Criminal Section of that division would help him decide if he should go ahead or cancel. His Ford sedan slid down the ramp to the underground parking lot and his reserved parking place.

  Elliott was there to meet him at the elevator—he was always there, never late. He’s not human, he’ll have to go, thought the Director, if I don’t have to go first. He suddenly realized that he could be handing his resignation in to the President that night. Which President? He put it out of his mind—that would all take care of itself in its own time, he must now take care of the next five hours.

  Elliott had nothing useful to say. Dexter and Harrison had both received and made phone calls during the night and early morning, but nothing incriminating had been picked up. No other information was forthcoming. The Director asked where the two senators were at that moment.

  “Both eating breakfast at their homes. Dexter in Kensington, Harrison in Alexandria. Six agents have been watching them since five o’clock this morning and have been detailed to follow them all day.”

  “Good. Report back to me immediately if anything unusual happens.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The fingerprint man was next. When he arrived, the Director first apologized for keeping him up all night, though the man’s face and eyes looked more alight and alive than his own had been in the shaving mirror that morning.

  Five feet four inches tall, slight and rather pale, Daniel Sommerton began his report. He was like a child with a toy. For him, working with prints had always been a passion as well as a job. The Director remained seated while Sommerton stood. If the Director had stood, he would not have been head and shoulders above him, but head, shoulders, and chest above him.

  “We have found seventeen different fingers, and three different thumbs, Director,” he said gleefully. “We’re putting them through the Ninhydrin rather than the iodine-fume process, since we were unable to do them one at a time for technical reasons that I won’t bother you with.”

  He waved his arm imperiously to imply that he would not waste a scientific explanation on the Director, who would have been the first to acknowledge such a pointless exercise.

  “We think there are two more prints we might identify,” Sommerton continued, “and we will have a readout for you on all twenty-two of them within two, at the most three hours.”

  The Director glanced at his watch—already 6:45.

  “Well done. That won’t be a minute too soon. Get me the results—even if they are negative—as quickly as possible, and please thank all of your staff for working through the night.”

  The fingerprint expert left the Director, anxious to return to his seventeen fingers, three thumbs and two unidentified marks. The Director pressed a button and asked Mrs. McGregor to send in the Assistant Director for Planning and Evaluation.

  Two minutes later, Walter Williams was standing in front of him.

  Five feet eleven, fair with a thin pallid face, dominated by a magnificent high-domed forehead, lined with amusement not grief, Williams was known in the Bureau either as the Brain or W.W. His primary responsibility was to head the Bureau’s think tank of six lesser but still impressive brains. The Director often confronted him with hypothetical situations to which W.W. would later provide an answer which often proved, in retrospect, to be the right one. The Director placed great faith in his judgment, but he could not take any risks today. W.W. had better come up with a convincing answer to his hypothetical question of last night or his next call would be to the President.

  “Good morning, Director.”

  “Good morning, W.W. What is your decision concerning my little problem?”

  “Most interesting, Director … I feel, to be fair, the answer is simple, even when we look at the problem from every angle.”

  For the first time that morning a trace of a smile appeared on the Director’s face.

  “Assuming
I haven’t misunderstood you, Director.”

  The Director’s smile broadened slightly; W.W. neither missed nor misunderstood anything, and was so formal that he didn’t address the Director even in private as Halt. W.W. continued, his eyebrows moving up and down like the Dow-Jones index in an election year:

  “You asked me to assume that the President would be leaving the White House at X hundred hours and then traveling by car to the Capitol. That would take her six minutes. I’m assuming her car is bullet-proof and well covered by the Secret Service. Under these conditions would it be possible to assassinate her. The answer is, it’s possible but almost impossible, Director. Nevertheless, following the hypothesis through to its logical conclusion, the assassination team could use three methods: (a) explosives; (b) a handgun at close range; (c) a rifle.”

  W.W. always sounded like a textbook. “The bomb can be thrown at any point on the route, but it is never used by professionals, because professionals are paid for results, not attempts. If you study bombs as a method of removing a President, you will find there hasn’t been a successful one yet, despite the fact that we have had four Presidents assassinated in office. Bombs inevitably end up killing innocent people and quite often the perpetrator of the crime as well. For that reason, since you have implied that the people involved would be professionals, I feel they must rely on the handgun or the rifle. Now the short-range gun, Director, is not a possible weapon on the route itself because it is unlikely that a pro would approach the President and shoot him at close range, thereby risking his own life. It would take an elephant gun or an anti-tank gun to pierce the President’s limousine, and you can’t carry those around in the middle of Washington without a permit.”

  With W.W., the Director could never be sure if it were meant to be a joke or just another fact. The eyebrows were still moving up and down, a sure signal not to interrupt him with foolish questions.

  “When the President arrives at the steps of the Capitol, the crowd is too far away from her for a handgun to (a) be accurate and (b) give the assassin any hope of escape. So we must assume that it’s the best-tested and most successful method of assassination of a Head of State—the rifle with telescopic sights for long range. Therefore, the only hope the assassin would have must be at the Capitol itself. The assassin can’t see into the White House, and in any case the glass in the windows is four inches thick, so he must wait until the President actually leaves the limousine at the steps of the Capitol. This morning we timed a walk up the Capitol steps and it takes around fifty seconds. There are very few vantage points from which to make an assassination attempt, but we have studied the area carefully and you will find them all listed in my report. Also the conspirators must be convinced that we know nothing about the plot, because they know we can cover every possible shooting site. We think an assassination here in the heart of Washington unlikely, but nevertheless just possible by a man or team daring and skillful enough.”

  “Thank you, W.W. I’m sure you’re right.”

  “A pleasure, sir. I do hope it’s only hypothetical.”

  “Yes, W.W.”

  W.W. smiled like the only schoolboy in the class who can answer the teacher’s questions. The Brain left the room to return to other problems. The Director paused and called for his other Assistant Director.

  Matthew Rogers knocked and entered the room, waiting to be asked to take a seat. He understood authority. Like W.W. he would never become the Director, but no one who did would want to be without him.

  “Well, Matt?” said the Director, pointing to the leather chair.

  “I read Andrews’ latest report last night, Director, and I really think the time has come for us to brief the Secret Service.”

  “I will be doing so in about an hour,” said the Director. “Don’t worry. Have you decided how you’ll deploy your men?”

  “It depends where the maximum risk is, sir.”

  “All right, Matt, let’s assume that the point of maximum risk is the Capitol itself, at 10:06, right on the steps—what then?”

  “First, I would surround the area for about a quarter of a mile in every direction. I’d close down the Metro, stop all traffic, public and private, pull aside for interrogation anyone who has a past record of making threats, anyone who’s on the Security Index. I’d get assistance from the Met to provide perimeter security. We’d want as many eyes and ears in the area as possible. We could get two to four helicopters from Andrews Air Force Base for close scanning. In the immediate vicinity of the President, I’d use the full Secret Service Presidential detail in tight security.”

  “Very good, Matt. How many men do you need for such an operation, and how long would it take them to be ready if I declared an emergency procedure now?”

  The Assistant Director looked at his watch—just after 7:00. He considered the matter for a moment. “I need three hundred special agents briefed and fully operational in two hours.”

  “Right, go ahead,” said the Director crisply. “Report to me as soon as they’re ready but leave the final briefing to the last possible moment, and, Matt, I want no helicopters until 10:01. I don’t want there to be a chance of a leak of any sort; it’s our one hope of catching the assassin.”

  “Why don’t you simply cancel the President’s visit, sir? We’re in enough deep water as it is, and it’s not entirely your responsibility in the first place.”

  “If we pull out now, we only have to start all over again tomorrow,” said the Director, “and I may never get another chance like this.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t let me down, Matt, because I am going to leave the ground operations entirely in your hands.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Rogers left the room. The Director knew his job would be done as competently as it could be by any professional law-enforcement officer in America.

  “Mrs. McGregor.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Get me the head of the Secret Service at the White House.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Director glanced at his watch: 7:10. Andrews was due at 8:15. The phone rang.

  “Mr. Knight on the line, sir.”

  “Stuart, can you call me on my private line and be sure you’re not overheard?”

  H. Stuart Knight knew Halt well enough to realize that he meant what he said. He called back immediately on his special scrambler.

  “Stuart, I’d like to see you immediately, usual place, take about thirty minutes, no more. Top priority.”

  Damned inconvenient, thought Knight, with the President leaving for the Capitol in two hours, but Halt only made this request two or three times a year, and he knew that other matters must be put to one side for the moment. Only the President and the Attorney General took priority over Halt.

  The Director of the FBI and the head of the Secret Service met at a line of cabs in front of Union Station ten minutes later. They didn’t take the first cab in the line, but the seventh. They climbed in the back without speaking or acknowledging each other. Elliott drove the Max’s Yellow Cab off to circle the Capitol. The Director talked and the head of the Secret Service listened.

  Mark’s alarm woke him at 6:45. He showered and shaved and thought about those transcripts he had left in the Senate, trying to convince himself that they would have thrown no light on whether it was Dexter or Harrison. He silently thanked Senator Stevenson for indirectly disposing of Senators Brooks, Byrd, and Thornton. He would thank anybody who could dispose of Senator Dexter. He was beginning to agree with the Director’s reasoning—it all pointed to Dexter. His motive was particularly compelling, but … Mark looked at his watch; he was a little early. He sat on the edge of his bed; he scratched his leg which was itching; something must have bitten him during the night. He continued trying to figure out if there was anything he had missed.

  The Chairman got out of bed at 7:20 and lit his first cigarette. He couldn’t remember exactly when he had woken. At 6:10 he had phoned Tony, who was already
up and waiting for his call. They weren’t to meet that day unless the Chairman needed the car in an emergency. The next time they would speak to each other would be on the dot of 9:30 for a check-in to confirm they were all in position.

  When he had completed the call, the Chairman dialed room service and ordered a large breakfast. What he was about to do that morning was not the sort of work to be tackled on an empty stomach. Matson was due to ring him any time after 7:30. Perhaps he was still asleep. After that effort last night, Matson deserved some rest. The Chairman smiled to himself. He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower; a feeble trickle of cold water emerged. Goddamn hotels. One hundred dollars a night and no hot water. He splashed around ineffectively and began to think about the next five hours, going over the plan again carefully to be sure he had not overlooked even the smallest detail. Tonight, Kane would be dead and he would have $2,000,000 in the Union Bank of Switzerland, Zurich, account number AZL-376921-B, a small reward from his grateful friends in the gun trade. And to think Uncle Sam wouldn’t even get the tax.

  The phone rang. Damn. He dripped across the floor, his heartbeat quickened. It was Matson.

  Matson and the Chairman had driven back from Mark’s apartment at 2:35 that morning, their task completed. Matson had overslept by thirty minutes. The damned hotel had forgotten his wake-up call; you couldn’t trust anyone nowdays. As soon as he had woken, he phoned the Chairman and reported in.

  Xan was safely in the top of the crane and ready—probably the only one of them who was still asleep.

  The Chairman, although dripping, was pleased. He put the phone down and returned to the shower. Damn, still cold.