The Third Coincidence

by David Bishop

“A few days ago, George Nelson, one of the other Federal Reserve governors, brought me a copy of something he received in his e-mail. Nelson’s hobby is colonial history. He said that he didn’t know its source, but he considered it substantially accurate. Please listen while I read it aloud. And then we’ll vote, as a family, to decide whether or not I resign.”

  Would You Have Signed the Declaration of Independence?

  The signers of the Declaration of Independence numbered fifty-six men. What were their fates? Five signers were captured by the British. Twelve had their homes destroyed. The sons of three were either killed or captured. Nine died, directly or indirectly, as a result of the hardships of the Revolutionary War. What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and judges. Eleven were merchants. Nine were farmers and owners of large plantations. They were all wealthy, well-educated men. They signed the Declaration of Independence knowing they would receive the penalty of death in the event they were captured. Most of the ships of Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, were destroyed by the British Navy. He sold his home and lands to pay his debts, and died of a stroke. Thomas McKean served in the Congress without being paid. His family hid. His properties were taken and poverty became his reward. The British government confiscated the property of Lyman Hall and charged him with treason. In early 1776, the British placed a reward on the head of John Hancock. The British General Cornwallis confiscated the home of Thomas Nelson, Jr. General George Washington, with the consent of Nelson, opened fire and destroyed his home. Nelson died bankrupt. Thomas Lynch, Jr., died with his wife when the ship on which they were sailing to the West Indies in 1776, disappeared. The British threw the wife of Francis Lewis in jail and destroyed his home. John Hart was forced to leave the bedside of his dying wife, and his thirteen children fled for their lives. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children gone. A few weeks later he died. Others suffered similar fates. These were men of wealth, yet they valued liberty more. Together they took a pledge: “For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” They gave you and me a free and independent America.

  Deirdre Jones, her husband, Christian, and their teenage children, Mary Ellen and Benjamin, discussed what they’d heard and what it meant. Then they took a vote and shared a family hug before Federal Reserve Governor Deirdre Jones left for work.

  CHAPTER 41

  Unnamed sources: NSA Director Quartz has resigned.

  The official announcement is expected at any time.

  —D.C. Talk, Mel Carsten

  Jack walked into the Bullpen at seven in the morning and saw his disheveled computer expert heading into the small kitchen area, a cup in hand. “Millet,” he said, “what about that list of air passengers for the Capone killing?”

  “Good morning to you, too, Jack,” Millet snapped. “Let me get my fucking hot chocolate, okay?”

  Millet’s outburst quieted the others in the Bullpen.

  “Talk while you stir. How’s it coming?”

  “During the night I eliminated those who didn’t meet the description and those I could confirm or deduce were elsewhere,” Millet said wearily. “Three need fieldwork and we have another phony.”

  “Tell me about the phony.”

  “Might be two dudes, but he’s looking like just one. A passenger using the name G. Marks flew from Houston to Pittsburgh. On an earlier flight a George Marks flew from Pittsburgh into Dallas. I factored in the time of the shooting and the time to drive from Dallas to Houston for the return flight—looks like the same dude.”

  Nora came over and took Millet’s cup of hot chocolate from his hand, set it on the counter, and hugged him. “What a guy. We may have another LW alias.”

  He blushed. “Oh, it’s no big deal. I just stayed here listening to the Dodgers game and before you guys got here this morning, I had Marks.”

  Jack took his position at the flip chart as the others gathered around the table. “Assume Marks is LW. Based on the times of the two flights, he had about two hours on the ground in Dallas. How does he get access to a special rifle with a muzzle suppressor and scope when he lands in Dallas? First the possibilities.”

  “He could have bought it on the black market in Dallas,” Nora suggested.

  Jack wrote: “black market,” while Millet was saying, “he could have bought it from a gun dealer in Dallas or maybe at a trade show.”

  “I would’ve obtained the gun during my prior surveillance trip and stashed it in Dallas,” Colin said. “The same for the boom box. That’s why the police haven’t found a retailer who remembers the sale.”

  “We should include the possibility that he’s got a local accomplice or militia member,” Frank said.

  Rex Smith, who had not participated in any of their previous brainstorm sessions, said, “He brought the gun with him on the airplane. Properly shipped in the cargo hole, this can be done.”

  Rachel said, “If he shipped it to Dallas and he only had two hours there, he couldn’t risk waiting for the rifle to be delivered. That would mean, if he shipped it he had a place for it to go, a place where it would wait for him. Could be to a package service, or an accomplice, or a dead drop? Maybe a rental house like he arranged across from the home of Chief Justice Evans.”

  After writing feverishly, Jack stepped back from the flip chart. “Okay, let’s qualify them.”

  Rachel began the attack. “The Harrelson house proved LW will rent a house for several months. If we’re assuming he lives near D.C. then the rental of the Harrelson house had been local. If LW rented in Dallas, he would’ve had to rent from long distance. And, if the authorities detected a sniping rifle in transit, LW had to be concerned that we might arrive with the package. So, let’s drop my idea. And, unless we’re ready to give up the assumption that LW’s a loner, we can also eliminate Frank’s contribution.”

  Jack asked, “Anybody want to argue for him having an accomplice or shipping the gun to Dallas?”

  No one spoke until Frank said, “Cross them both off.”

  Millet spoke next. “I don’t like the idea of his buying it when he arrives. The timing is too close to the murder. It risks the availability of the right gun, or silencer, or scope as well as the likelihood of the seller remembering his face after the media reported the kind of weapon used in the killing.”

  “I agree with Millet,” Colin said, “but for a different reason.”

  Colin had several sniper kills at distances up to two thousand meters, and those were just the ones Jack knew about. He particularly wanted to hear Colin’s views.

  “What’s your reasoning?” Jack asked Colin.

  “However he got the rifle, he would’ve needed time to calibrate the scope at the approximate distance. Five hundred yards is not a real long shot, but it’s long enough that without adequate time to calibrate properly, even a top marksman would likely miss a head shot. If Marks is LW, he didn’t have time on the ground in Dallas to both obtain the rifle and test for the shot.”

  “Arguments?” Jack asked.

  When no one spoke, he drew a line through “black market” and “across the counter.” Although, they all realized, he could have gotten his shooting rig either of those ways during an earlier trip to Dallas.

  “Isn’t it risky to check a rifle as baggage on the airplane?” Nora asked. “He would have chanced the bag being lost or delayed. The rate of lost airline baggage is high enough for him to be concerned it might not arrive. At the least this would’ve meant he wouldn’t have the rifle, and at worst that the bag would be x-rayed or opened.”

  They were left with Colin’s theory that LW must have bought both the rifle and the boom box on a prior trip and hidden them in Dallas.

  “Check the name George Marks and the other fictitious names we have with all the places you can think of where he might have cached the gun in Dallas w
ithout an accomplice,” Jack told Rex. “Maybe one of those self-storage units, but don’t stop there. To cover all the bases, get ATF to check for reported Texas retail or trade show sales of a Tango 51, regardless of what accessories were sold with it.”

  Jack went over to their paper graveyard where he had written John Kimble’s name in red on the card below the pictures of the honeymooners, Mr. and Mrs. Breen, and Robert Campbell below the pictures of Chip Taylor, his wife and mother. He picked up the pen and wrote George Marks below Capone’s picture.

  You do live near D.C., don’t you?

  CHAPTER 42

  The Supreme Court’s information office states that it’s business as usual, but the empty wing chairs sitting behind the bench in the Court’s chamber remain as a silent, ghastly reminder that nothing here is, as usual.

  —Fox News

  During the weeks LW had been watching Thomas Evans, the chief justice of the United States had twice gone to his dentist, Dr. Jonathan Eberhard, whose office was on Sixth Street north of F Street, about ten blocks from the Supreme Court. Evans had walked to both appointments.

  After hacking into the appointments log in Dr. Eberhard’s computer, LW saw that the chief justice had an appointment set for tomorrow at two forty-five in the afternoon. Expecting that Eberhard’s staff, like the staffs of dentists the world over, had the annoying habit of calling the day prior to confirm appointments, LW decided that he would hack in again tonight to verify that the appointment had been confirmed.

  For the shot, LW had selected the roof of the Oriental Building Association building. The OBA, built in 1861, stood empty and boarded up on the southwest corner of Sixth and F Streets. Evans, a creature of habit, turned at that intersection each time he walked to his dentist.

  The MCI Center, across from the OBA on the northwest corner, had no event scheduled tomorrow. Directly across Sixth to the east, was Engine Company No. 2, a fire department substation. The backside of a Washington Metropolitan Rapid Transit building sat catty-corner, with nearly no aboveground sight lines to the top of the OBA. The taller building to the immediate south near the corner of Sixth and E Streets had no windows on the side that faced the OBA.

  A border of cement pylons separated the F Street sidewalk from an empty lot on the west side of the OBA. That lot hooked around behind the building until an eight-foot block wall partitioned the lot from the Sixth Street sidewalk. The wall, which continued a good part of the way to E Street, for some inexplicable reason had a locked door, a lock which LW had picked as part of planning this mission, and then relocked until early this morning when he picked it again and left it unlocked. The wall jutted in such a way that he could walk the Sixth Street sidewalk to E Street without being seen from the intersection where he would leave the dead chief justice of the United States.

  An air duct ran down the OBA’s rear southwest corner from its roof to within a few feet of the empty lot behind the wall. He had hidden a knotted rope inside that air duct. He would be blocks away by the time the agents reacted to the source of the shot.

  The roof on this five-story building provided a perfect field of fire in every way possible. The afternoon sun would be at his back, angling into the eyes of anyone looking up from the street, and the rooftop’s equipment shed gave enough cover to prevent his being seen from a helicopter.

  A perfect set up.

  Jack and Rachel were sitting in two brown occasional chairs in the Bullpen when Frank drifted over to join them. Then Rex came to sit on the arm of the chair across from Jack.

  “The Dallas PD found a storage unit rented by George Marks,” Rex told them. “Marks paid cash and the address he gave the manager is a vacant house. The Dallas FBI evidence response team found nothing that pointed to LW’s identity.”

  “Did they find anything that tells us this Marks is definitely LW?” Frank asked.

  “I’ll give you one guess as to what they found around the door of the storage unit.”

  Rachel squeezed the bridge of her nose with her eyes closed. “More of his heat-emitting chemical.”

  “Give the lady a kewpie doll!” Rex grinned and slid off the arm down into the seat of the chair. “That particular storage unit could be seen from the street. My guess is he picked that one so he could check it with his FLIR scope before entering the facility.”

  “Did they find anything that might give him a reason to go back?” Jack asked.

  “The storage unit has served his purpose.” Rex shrugged. “It’s empty.”

  “What about when he rented the space?” Rachel asked.

  “The manager remembered that Marks had his hands bandaged, but the manager’s general description of the guy matched what we have. The manager completed the forms for Marks and, because of the bandages, they didn’t ask him to try to sign.”

  Rex opened his notepad and thumbed over a couple of pages.

  “The manager said that he watched Marks struggle to move a rolled-up blanket from his car’s trunk to inside the storage unit. He came across as too proud to accept help. He left saying he would be back with more in a few weeks when his hands had healed.”

  “How did he pay?” Jack asked.

  “Cash. He couldn’t write a check or sign a credit card voucher. The manager remembered nothing more, other than he wore a red cap.”

  “The bastard certainly pays attention to the details,” Jack said.

  Colin ran his hand through his black, wavy hair. “I finally reached General Crook. Portable night-vision equipment, both image enhancement and thermal, is very popular. You can buy it in some retail outlets, most war surplus stores, and over the Internet. So, following that lead would be a long chase. What’s the latest on the lists?”

  Rachel shrugged. “They’re supposed to be ready in a few hours, and once they get here we won’t have much time for anything else so let’s get some lunch now.”

  “That sounds better than this cold croissant,” Colin said, tossing it into the wastebasket, “cafeteria or off campus?”

  Millet said, “How ’bout Friendly’s off Old Dominion?”

  “Let’s eat in the cafeteria,” Rachel said, “just in case the lists come early. I’ll leave a note for Nora. She should be back any minute.”

  Who will be the next target? Jack wondered. And how much time do we have?

  CHAPTER 43

  Within D.C. legal circles, Chief Justice Evans is known as “Walking Justice,” for his habit of going for walks during private deliberations.

  —Parade Sunday Supplement Magazine, June 20

  Samuel Blackmer, the flamboyant freelance writer and longtime watcher of the U.S. Senate, loved to poke fun at the establishment. For his appearance on Carsten’s D.C. Talk, he had dressed splendiferously in a black long-sleeved shirt and yellow suspenders, accessorized with a black and yellow polka-dotted bow tie that on television appeared as wide as his handlebar mustache.

  “The Fed board is down to four governors,” the show’s host, Mel Carsten, began as the camera zoomed in on his somber face. “The board does not have a critical meeting scheduled until their open-market committee meets on June twenty-seventh. As for the Supreme Court, they have not issued a ruling or heard oral arguments since James Dunlin’s resignation dropped the Court to five justices.”

  “What’s the latest on this continuing story?” Carsten asked Blackmer.

  “Both the Judiciary Committee and the Banking Committee have nominees, but the nominees are moving with all the haste of the race between a tortoise and a snail.” Blackmer punctuated his simile by stretching out his suspenders, then leaving them to snap back against his global figure.

  “Why is that?” Carsten asked. “We have the president, the chairs of both committees, and the congressional leadership all on record favoring expedited confirmations.”

  Blackmer twisted his mustache. “Some nominees are delaying their response when asked to schedule an appearance.”

  Mel Carsten stood erect, his feet at shoulders width. “A recent
news poll asked Americans: If you were a nominee for the Supreme Court or the Federal Reserve Board, would you (a) promptly continue the process; (b) withdraw your name from consideration; or (c) drag out the process hoping LW is caught before you’re called to appear at a confirmation hearing? Less than one-third of those polled said, they would move forward promptly. It would appear the responses of the nominees are right in line with public opinion.”

  Blackmer’s eyes twinkled as the camera came closer. “Senator Leland’s Judiciary Committee had better get busy and confirm at least two nominees for the Court,” he said. “Until then, LW has a de facto win. Without the six justices needed for a quorum, the Court is effectively standing down as this madman has demanded.”

  Carsten turned toward his second guest, sitting beside Blackmer, a thin man, dressed in a dark suit with a quiet tie. “What can you tell us about these persistent rumors that the president’s advisors are pressuring him to replace Jack McCall?”

  “Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” said Matthew Gillis, a former undersecretary at the State Department. “The president, however, continues to stand steadfast behind McCall. And as long as that’s the case, there will be no change.”

  Carsten turned to the camera. “Our next guest on D.C. Talk is Catherine Lee. Ms. Lee is a professor of political science and American government at Georgetown University.”

  He gestured for Ms. Lee to take the seat on his left so the conservatively dressed woman would not need to compete visually on camera with the colorful Samuel Blackmer.

  “Thank you for joining us, Professor. Can you shed some light on LW’s claim that the Supreme Court is exceeding its authority when it rules laws unconstitutional?”

  “Yes, I can,” she replied crisply. “LW’s written public statements are based on a twisted and incorrect interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Congress makes the laws and, assuming the president signs them, the agencies of the executive branch administer and enforce them. The Supreme Court, with an appropriate case before them, decides if the laws are constitutional, that is, whether a given law is consistent with the enumerated rights of the people and the states. In individual cases, the Court may also interpret the law to resolve specific disputes.”