What Stark was doing gave security people ulcers on their ulcers. Protecting somebody in a crowd situation like this was a nightmare for the Secret Service agents, and there wasn't a damn thing they could do to prevent it. Politicians like to press the flesh, because personal contact means votes, and the people charged with keeping them safe would just have to lump it. As usual.
One agent went down the rope line about twenty feet ahead of the candidate. "Can you just put your hands out, folks, just like you were about to shake hands with the Senator. That's it. Now please keep 'em up like that if you would - you won't have to wait long."
The hand you can't see may be the hand clutching a weapon. Obviously, a bad guy could have a weapon in his other hand, but asking people to stand for two or three minutes with both hands out in front of them was unreasonable. In the Secret Service, you take what you can get, and one hand in view was better than none.
They moved slowly down the rope line, the agents stepping sideways, so that they were facing the crowd at all times. After the advance guy, who got peoples' hands up, were two more agents, who geared their rate of lateral movement to the speed the protectee (in this case, Stark) was moving. Then the Man himself, followed by two more agents, in case somebody had the idea of shooting Stark in the back after he passed. Masterson had placed himself second from the end, which put him a few feet to Stark's left.
When he worked a crowd or a rope line, the same refrain always ran through Masterson's mind like a mantra, replete with names of infamous security failures of the past.
Watch the hands of the ones close up, watch the faces of those farther away, John Hinckley, watch the hands, keep The Man moving, watch their hands, check the faces for the guy who isn't smiling, Lee Harvey Oswald, don't let him stay in one place more than a few seconds, keep him moving, watch their hands, Arthur Brenner, don't over-react - shoot some civilian who's reaching for a breath mint and your career's over, Sirhan Sirhan, watch their faces, look ahead, anticipate, John Wilkes fucking Booth, the hands, watch their hands...
When trouble came, it appeared out of nowhere, as it always does. They had almost reached the auditorium doors when Stark suddenly recoiled from someone, or something, in the crowd.
It was a tribute to the professionalism of the Secret Service agents that nobody yelled "Gun!" That word would have galvanized the entire detail, sending the agents into a series of precise and coordinated actions as carefully planned and practiced as any play called by an NFL quarterback. But none of them had seen a weapon or a muzzle flash, or heard a shot, and so they refrained, even though they knew that something was wrong.
That was enough for Masterson to call a Class 2 Security Alert. Two agents surrounded Stark and got him quietly but firmly away from the people and out the door, no drama, while the other agents went the other way, wading into the crowd near the spot where Stark had been a few moments earlier. Their attentions focused on a thin, middle-aged man in a Navy blue sweater. The man didn't pull a weapon, or fight, or try to run. In fact, he seemed confused by the questions being shouted at him by several large men in suits.
The Secret Service had commandeered an office just off the auditorium for use as a staging area, and it was there that they brought the man in the blue sweater, who was now looking both bewildered and scared.
They hadn't read the man his rights yet - it wasn't clear at the moment what they would charge him with, if anything, and the paperwork involved in filing an arrest report with Washington was a major pain in the butt. Better to find out what they were dealing with, first.
The initial order of business was a thorough frisk, which gave absolutely no consideration to the man's dignity or privacy. In a few minutes, it was clear that he carried nothing that could conceivably be called a weapon.
The contents of the man's pockets were arrayed on a nearby desk, and Masterson looked them over with a practiced eye. He picked up a slim book bound in black leather. Hanging from the bottom were several thin ribbons in different colors, each about the width of a shoelace.
Masterson tugged one of the bits of cloth, and the book opened in his hand. He saw now that it was a bookmark that ran from the top of the spine all the way down the page.
Funny way to keep your place - and why would you need five of them?
Then he realized that the pages open before him were in a foreign language. He wasn't Catholic, but Masterson recognized Latin when he saw it.
He turned to the man in the blue sweater, who now sat in a chair, hands in his lap. "You're a Godly man, are you, Mr...?" Maybe he's a religious nut? That might help explain a few things.
"Bowles," the man said. "Joseph Robert Bowles. He assayed a small, nervous smile, then said, "Yes, I like to think of myself as Godly. I do my best, anyway."
Rex Cummings, one of the other agents, had started going through the man's cheap-looking wallet. "Yeah, I'd say he was Godly, all right," he said, handing the open wallet to Masterson. "Take a look at this."
Masterson took it and saw a laminated ID card. It had the man's photo, confirmed that his name was Joseph R. Bowles, and contained a bunch of other information. Stamped across the whole thing, in big letters, was 'CLERGY.'
Oh, sweet fucking Jesus. That's all I need.
There was no standing in line this time. The package was just a manila envelope, so thin that when folded lengthwise that it actually fit into Nestor Greene's Post Office box. He waited until he was back in his car to open it.
The return address was another P.O. box, although he knew that to be fictitious. Greene knew who had sent the envelope; he recognized the spider-thin handwriting, including where it said 'Do not bend!' He shook his head in disgust. Even though the admonition on the envelope had been ignored by the postal service nitwits, he saw that the contents of the envelope had not been adversely affected by being bent and crammed into his mailbox.
Green frowned as he examined the materials. He was not being given a lot to work with, this time around. There were no juicy photos to pass on to the tabloid press. Well, at least he wouldn't have to meet with that macho idiot Mundenar again.
The manila envelope contained a single sheet of paper that, he knew, would bear his instructions from Mary Margaret Doyle, and two sets of paper-clipped documents. One consisted of a series of photocopies of what looked like pages from a book. The other was made up of some sort of typed material, the pages crinkly and a bit faded with age. Greene frowned and decided that he'd best wait until he was home to examine these latest treasures.
Twenty-five minutes later found Nestor Greene seated behind the desk in his study, an icy glass of Stolichnaya Elit sharing space with the envelope from Mary Margaret Doyle. He grasped the envelope at the bottom and tilted it, allowing its contents to slide onto the polished teak surface.
He put the single sheet of instructions off to the side. No sense in spoiling the surprise. Greene enjoyed the challenge of figuring out just who was about to get royally fucked, and in what precise way.
He decided to let the photocopied material wait and picked up the other sheaf of papers, noticing the slightly musty small they gave off. He removed the paper clip and peered at the first page, which was apparently some kind of cover sheet. At the top was typed, in all caps: SHOWDOWN AT CREDIBILITY GAP: PARAMETERS OF DECEPTION IN THE ADMINISTRATION OF LYNDON BAYNES JOHNSON.
Hmmm. Rather clever, in a puerile sort of way. The words on the page, he saw, were the product of a real typewriter, not a printer from some computer. How quaint. That meant that the document was practically antediluvian.
In the middle of the page, centered, was:
A Senior Thesis
Department of Political Science
Amherst College
In partial fulfillment for the degree
Bachelor of Arts
And down near the bottom was typed:
by
Randall R. Lunsford
May, 1977
Greene frowned. Randall Lunsford was the name of one of the s
tronger Republican candidates for the presidential nomination this year - but why the hell should anybody, including Nestor Greene, give a rat's ass about his senior thesis, written thirty-some years ago?
Greene checked the number of the last page - Mother Mary, the thing ran to 87 pages. Was he going to have to read all of it? Greene used his thumb to flip through the pages, and that's when something caught his eye. He stopped, and looked closer. Part of page 9 was highlighted with that yellow ink that students use to mark up their textbooks. Unlike the typed words on the page, the yellow stuff seemed fresh, as if applied much more recently. Greene read the passage thus indicated, and found it unremarkable. Yeah, yeah. LBJ was a lying bastard. Tell me something I don't already know, kid. He flipped some more pages, and found the yellow markings on two, three, four... seventeen pages, in total.
Greene scratched his cheek. His attention was clearly being directed to certain specific parts of this piece of ancient history, but what this had to do with destroying some politico's career today...
He turned to the collection of photocopies. The top sheet looked like the title page from a book: Johnson and His Critics: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics by one Adam H. Quiller. The book had been published by some obscure university press in 1975.
I think I'm starting to see where we're going here, Greene thought. But is this journey really necessary?
The second page had a paragraph that had been marked by the yellow highlighter.
"'When Johnson ordered the Navy to bomb the North Vietnamese radar installations - the first time the North was targeted for aerial bombardment - in retaliation for the attacks on the Maddox and Turner Joy by PT boats in the Gulf of Tonkin, he was already aware that the officers commanding the U.S. vessels were expressing doubts that such an attack had ever occurred.'"
Greene was pretty sure he recognized the passage. He went back to the senior thesis and began turning pages rapidly - until he came to page 32.
When Johnson ordered the Navy to bomb the North Vietnamese radar installations...
Green looked for quotation marks around this passage. There were none. He looked for a footnote number. None. He looked for anything that would tell the reader of the senior thesis that these words were anything but the product of the undergraduate brain of one Randall Lunsford. There was nothing.
Greene didn't bother to match up the other marked sections of the two documents. He already knew what he would find.
He sat back in his chair, reached for the glass of vodka, and took a long sip.
Okay, fine. What we have here is conclusive proof that Randy Lunsford, current Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and candidate for the office of President of the United States, had committed blatant plagiarism in writing his senior thesis at Amherst, all those years ago. Since the thesis was certainly a prerequisite for his Bachelor's degree, the degree was probably granted fraudulently, and could even be revoked, if the folks at Amherst are willing to take the chance of making a mortal enemy of their governor who has, I believe, two more years left in his term.
Greene took another pull at his drink, and set the glass down.
Big fucking hairy deal.
This kind of revelation was not unknown in American politics. It was a blow to Lunsford's candidacy, but not necessarily a fatal one. Just off the top of his head, Greene could think of three potential lines of defense: 'I Was Young and Stupid,' 'I Was Young and (Temporarily) Having Emotional Problems,' and 'This Is a Smear Campaign by My Enemies.'
It would be a nine day's wonder that wouldn't even last nine days. The late-night comics would get some good jokes out of it (Did you hear that Governor Lunsford's campaign has released an advance copy of his newest campaign speech? It begins 'Four score and seven years ago...'), a few reporters would ask questions and receive carefully-scripted, well-rehearsed answers, and it would all blow over. Probably.
As a political weapon, it sure couldn't compete with photos of a guy sucking cock.
If this was the best Mary Margaret Doyle could come up with to deal with one of Stark's competitors... It occurred to Greene that he ought to read her accompanying memo.
No salutation, of course. Gets right to the point, does our Ms. Doyle.
Compare the video footage of Lunsford's speech announcing his candidacy with a speech by Glenda Jackson (yes, the former actress) given when announcing her decision to run for Parliament in 1992. The similarities between the two are far too numerous to be chance, or even honest paraphrase. It is possible, of course, to overcome this kind of error. Joe Biden was caught in 1987 lifting parts of a speech by Brit M.P. Neil Kinnock, and his career in politics was not over - but he didn't get to be President, either. When Lunsford's lapse is combined with the clear evidence of earlier plagiarism, a pattern would seem to emerge - a pattern of extreme carelessness at best, or of repeated, deliberate deception at worst, etc. You know how to get the story out there. Do it ASAP, and try not to fuck it up.
Nestor Greene muttered several unkind, and anatomically impossible, things about Mary Margaret Doyle. Then he turned on his computer and tried to remember whom he might know at the BBC that could be either bribed, begged, or blackmailed into doing him a favor.
Chapter 19
In order to avoid being summarily returned to Hell for goofing off on the job, Malachi Peters put in a lot of hours doing research on Senator Stark, interrupted only occasionally by brief forays into the Wonderland of Internet porn. He had been doing it that way for three days now, and it must not have pissed Astaroth off, since Peters was still here.
Assassinating Stark was going to be a complex problem. Peters had spent six years in Europe, killing people who had been deemed threats to U.S. national security. But a hit was a hit (although Peters' immediate superior, an enigmatic man known only as Mac, always referred to it as a 'touch'), regardless of where you were, and the relevant factors were always the same: access, termination, and egress. Or as his instructors at The Farm in Virginia liked to call it, "Getting in, getting it done, and getting out."
To Peters, it seemed like the third stage was going to be the hardest. It usually was - for the first two, you had surprise on your side. But by the time you got to egress, if you lived that long, everybody was after your ass.
Peters had every intention of reaching the third phase, and getting away clean. If he were killed, that was probably an express ticket back to Hades; if he got caught, that would mean either execution for murder, or the rest of his life spent in prison, enduring one kind of hell while waiting for the real thing. Or, if captured, he could always just tell the authorities the complete truth about who he was and how he'd gotten here - the result being his incarceration in a high-security mental hospital for life.
And if he were locked up somewhere, it would be just like that bastard Astaroth to grant him a long, long life.
Even the first two steps of the assassination sequence were probably more difficult than they used to be. It must be a security nightmare these days - guarding against an assassin who doesn't care if he dies, who even wants to die, for the greater glory of Allah.
Welcome to the 21st Century, Mr. Peters. We have good news and bad news. The good: your country's nemesis, the Soviet Union, is no more. Communism there is a thing of the past, and relations between Russia and America are, if not warm, at least cordial.
Now for the bad news...
Peters had known about the 9/11 attacks even before his return to Earth. He'd been near the intake area of Hell on that fateful day, and had been present when the souls of some of the dead from the Twin Towers arrived. They were accompanied by the spirits of the hijackers, and didn't they look surprised.
Sorry, boys - no 72 virgins apiece. Virgins are pretty scarce around these parts, anyway, and if anybody's going to spend eternity getting fucked, it's gonna be YOU.
Peters sat back and rubbed his tired eyes. Knowing where Stark was going to be on any given day over the next four months was easy. The primary schedule was online,
and Peters had already printed it out.
And there was always the Republican convention, which was being held in New York this time around. Even if Stark didn't get the nomination, he'd almost certainly be there; such things were expected of politicos.
The downside of waiting until then was that security at the convention would be both wide and deep. But there was an upside, too. With that many people, and that much chaos, it might be possible to nail Stark and then disappear into the crowd - which might even panic and stampede when Stark went down, depending on how it was done.
Peters had a New York State driver's license, made current again by the power of Astaroth. The state gun laws hadn't changed much - they were still the toughest in the country. To buy a pistol legally you needed a permit, and New York permits required lots of paperwork, persistence, and patience. He'd also read that the gun dealers were now required to do a background check before they could sell you a handgun. Peters wondered what the clerk at some gun store would say if the background check on him came back marked 'Deceased.'
Rifles and shotguns had always been easier to get, and that hadn't changed. All you needed was proof that you were over eighteen. A long gun might be his best bet, anyway. Getting close enough to nail somebody with a pistol meant giving his bodyguards the chance to nail you right back.
He got up from the desk, hearing his vertebrae snap and pop. He'd found that his libido had returned with his memory, and his little 'porn breaks' had only strengthened a need that masturbation couldn't satisfy. It had been a very long time since he'd been with a woman. Peters tried not to think about what passed for sex in Hell.
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