He aimed for the advance man’s legs, firing off a series of pulses. The man stumbled, but before Scott could put him down a laser glanced off his own helmet, blowing the circuitry.
“Cripes!”
Scott removed the smoking helmet and looked it over. Fried.
Something flashed in his peripheral vision. Scott ducked, the end of a carbine thudding into the padded wall above him. He was spinning to face his attacker when a muffled grunt sounded from inside the man’s suit. A kick had landed against his ribs. A second kick — this one to the helmet — knocked him onto his back.
“Nice timing, Jan—”
But Scott wasn’t talking to Janis.
He watched Margaret relieve the man of his carbine and finish him with a stun shot. Tossing her hair back, she leveled her green eyes at Scott. “Not much action in the back.”
Scott gaped. “I’ll never doubt you again.”
He followed her turning head to where the final man had erected a barrier of the fallen walls and retreated behind it. The image reminded Scott of a child crawling around a couch-cushion fort, and he couldn’t help but grin. Until the man got off a shot that paralyzed Margaret.
“Jesse?” he called back, helping Margaret to the floor.
Jesse lumbered forward, uprooted Janis’s barrier, and hurled it like a Frisbee. The wall skimmed off the floor and collided into the opponent’s fort, blowing the pieces skyward. The man somersaulted into the rear wall and lay moaning.
At the far end of the room, Jesse bent the opponents’ pole down and plucked off the flag.
Game over.
Agent Steel, who had been observing from her spot against the wall, strode forward. “Far from perfect, but sufficient to the task, I suppose. We’ll take thirty minutes for your teammates to recuperate, then we’ll meet in the strategy center and review the tape. Lots of sloppiness to clean up. Remember, the challenges will only grow harder from here.”
And with that, she strode off.
Scott retrieved his burnt helmet from the floor and walked over to where Janis was scowling. “Don’t look so offended,” he said. “In Steel-speak, I’m pretty sure that was a compliment.”
“Well, in Janis-speak, she’s still an a-hole.”
Scott laughed and was glad when a little smirk curled one corner of Janis’s mouth. “Hey, listen.” He pushed up the sleeves of his jumpsuit. “What I wanted to talk to you about earlier—”
“Well done, team! Well done!”
Scott turned to find Director Kilmer crossing the floor at a rapid clip, applauding as he came. Smile lines crimped the skin around his mouth and eyes, as though he was straining to hold them in place.
“I saw the whole thing from one of the monitors. Wow! What an improvement.”
“Thanks,” Scott said.
Director Kilmer arrived in their company, and as his dark eyes flicked between the two of them, Scott felt the same prickling shame in his chest that he had experienced while reading the message on his computer console Friday night. Kilmer jiggled a finger at Janis.
“Didn’t I tell you the team training would get better?”
“We’ll see,” she muttered.
“I actually came up to talk to Scott. Do you have a minute?”
“Sure…” Scott said.
He followed Kilmer to the room he had spent the last seven weeks training in with Gabriella. The large console was off now, the wall of tiles dim and still. Director Kilmer closed the door and pulled out one of the rolling chairs, its casters squeaking softly. “Here, have a seat.”
Scott lowered himself to the chair while Kilmer remained on his feet. The director stood regarding him a moment, a knuckle blanching his lips. His eyes seemed to have become hard again, devoid of light.
“That message I sent.” He chuckled and waved a hand. “I hope you didn’t get too worked up over it. I know it’s hard balancing your responsibilities to the team with your responsibilities to your … well, to your lady friend.” He nodded toward the closed door. “I just didn’t want anything to interfere with the development of the team right now. That’s all I meant.”
“I told Janis the same thing,” Scott said in a flat voice.
Kilmer raised his eyebrows in surprise. “You did? Well, good, Scott. Good.” He clapped Scott’s knee. Though he was playing the good guy again, a certain menace lingered around him.
Scott took a deep breath, knowing he was about to jeopardize his future. “She has a right to know.”
Kilmer’s brow collapsed downward. “To know what, Scott?”
“What happened to the last team.”
Director Kilmer brought a knuckle back to his lips and began to pace in front of Scott’s chair. For several turns, he said nothing. The fabric of his black pant legs cut sharply against each other.
“She has a right to know,” Kilmer echoed, almost to himself.
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you want to know something?” Kilmer stopped to face Scott, his expression thoughtful. “Maybe she does, maybe she does. And maybe she has a right to know other things, as well.”
Scott swallowed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, we could start with Agent Leonard.”
Scott felt the color drain from his face.
“Bit of a problem agent, if you remember. Couldn’t decide if he wanted to warn you kids or harm you. And then he disappears like a sigh. Months pass. Leads turn to dead ends. And then Agent Steel interviews someone, and praise be, he knows something. He knows everything. He gives up Agent Leonard’s hiding place and his meeting time with Janis.” Director Kilmer chuckled before fixing his gaze on Scott’s. “Now, you tell me. Doesn’t Janis have a right to know that, as well?”
“Um, not necessarily.”
Director Kilmer’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Oh really? And why not?”
“Because it wasn’t intentional, what the person told Agent Steel. And anyway, it happened, it’s done.” Anger mingled with Scott’s thrashing panic, shaking his words. “Why bring it back up?”
Kilmer stooped forward, calmly. “Exactly,” he said. “Why bring it back up?”
Understanding where he had been led, Scott let out his air.
“So let’s make a deal,” Director Kilmer continued. “You agree to forget this business with the last Champions team, and I’ll agree to forget the name of the person who gave up Agent Leonard. Deal?”
Kilmer extended his right hand.
* * *
“What was that meeting with Kilmer all about?” Janis asked.
“Nothing important,” Scott said, avoiding her gaze. They were in a corridor beneath the neighborhood, walking home from training. “He just wanted to give me some feedback on the exercise.”
“I thought that was Agent Steel’s job.”
Scott shrugged.
Janis peeked around then gave him a quick kiss. “Have to sneak them in when I can. Hey, you said earlier you wanted to talk. I’m guessing it was about the trip I mentioned?” In the dim light, her eyes appeared bright and hopeful.
“Oh, yeah.” Misery swilled around Scott’s gut. “I just, um, well, I just wanted to apologize that I couldn’t go.”
Janis leaned away, head tilting. “But you already told me that.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t tell you I was sorry. I mean, not the other night.”
She sees right through me.
“There’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Like what?” Scott asked.
“Like why you’re acting like Tyler suddenly.” She pulled on his arm until he stopped walking. His feet dragged as he turned to face her. “Scott, it’s me. If they have something on you, you can tell me.”
He remembered the day Mr. Leonard had been shot, finding Janis on the ground in the woods, tears streaking her face.
“It’s nothing like that,” he said.
“Scott—”
“Look, I’ve gotta go.” He drew his arm from her hands and wheeled down the
corridor that led to the small elevator to his parents’ closet. Halfway there, he turned to find Janis’s silhouette staring after him. “I’m fine.” His words echoed off the cold concrete, amplifying their sound, their frustration. “I just don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
When he reached the elevator, he peeked back again.
This time, the corridor was empty.
22
The White House
Tuesday, January 17, 1961
8:20 p.m.
President Eisenhower’s face looked different, pinker, less rugged, but Reginald Perry had never seen him this close. In fact, Reginald had never seen him, period, except for in black and white. And now there he sat, behind his Oval Office desk not twenty feet away, in full color.
The president frowned over his glasses as he sorted through the transcript for the evening, his farewell address to the nation spread out in front of him. Reggie eyed the man’s dark three-piece suit in contempt, glad his tie was off center. His gaze fell to the president’s gold pin.
Who’d you sell out to get that? he thought.
“Wally, lower your light about a half-inch. You’re bleaching the president’s brow.”
Reginald realized the voice in the headset was addressing him. He pulled his gaze from the president and, with freckled hands that looked alien in their whiteness, canted the spotlight down on its tripod.
“Better,” the director’s voice said. “Mickey, pull back your shot.”
Reginald looked to the left. The RCA camera was huge and box-shaped, like the man stooped behind it. Mickey muttered around an unlit cigar and rolled it back a foot. At the president’s desk, the sound operator adjusted two microphones. The crew started into final sound checks, the president looking up from his notes and speaking when asked.
You have no idea, do you? No idea that I’ve come for you.
How could he? Were President Eisenhower to squint between the two spotlights, he would only see a thin young man with fading freckles and a shiny crew cut. An eager beaver. Reginald thought of Wally — the real Wally — sleeping off a Mickey Finn in his U Street room two miles away. He’d wake up in the morning with the mother of all hangovers, but he wasn’t hurt.
The voices in Reginald’s headset became muffled as his heartbeats consumed his hearing.
He ventured a look down to make sure his black tie still hid the slight bulk of the Derringer pistol he’d taped below his chest. He rehearsed the moves in his mind. Pretend to scratch, find the fourth button from the top, slip it open, reach inside…
He raised his gaze back to the man he would be aiming at.
How long ago had it been, three years, when he and Madelyn sat in front of their first television set, watching the same man explain the use of troops to enforce desegregation in Arkansas? Reginald cried that night. Madelyn thumbed the tears from under his eyes, whispering, “You see, Reggie, the forces of history are on your side. This president’s on your side. Any day, your country will see past your skin and discover the beautiful man you are.”
He swallowed back the threat of fresh tears.
The American flag with its newest stars hung heavily beyond Eisenhower’s right shoulder. The presidential flag stood opposite, sober and blue. Reginald stared at them. He’d once sworn his allegiance, his everything, to those flags.
God, Madelyn…
“Quiet in the room.”
The soundman retreated from the desk in careful, mincing steps. Mickey, the cameraman, snorted a final bolus of phlegm. The Oval Office fell silent. The president tapped the pages of transcript into a small sheaf and set them in front of him. He cleared his throat, his shoulders straightening.
Reginald thought of his rented room near U Street and the five handwritten pages he’d left in a neat stack on the kitchen table. His own farewell address. But had he said everything? The promises, the betrayal, the unthinkable loss — had he connected all of the dots, had he been articulate enough so the newspapers couldn’t write him off as just another crackpot? That worried him now. In his mind, Reginald tried to reformulate the words he’d composed, but they eluded him. His pen had shaken all over the pages. More than once, he’d had to start over.
The man you call your president took everything from me.
“We’re live in five, four, three…” The director switched his countdown to his fingers then pointed.
President Eisenhower stared into the camera for what seemed an unnaturally long time, his stroke-addled face leaning slightly. “Good evening, my fellow Americans,” he said at last.
Reginald’s gaze went from the man’s keen blue eyes to the center of his forehead. What will blood look like in black and white? He swallowed and slipped a hand under his tie. Will it be vivid enough to shock America from its stupidity, just as the blood that matted Madelyn’s hair shocked me from mine?
His fingers located the fourth shirt button and unclasped it.
What would Madelyn think? he suddenly wondered. He could almost see her eyes, so beautiful and stern inside those waves of blond hair he used to press his face against. This isn’t the way, baby, she would have said. You might as well be turning the gun on yourself.
Reginald felt the hinges of his jaw tighten as his hand closed over the pistol’s grip.
They already did, he heard himself answering her. In his mind, he kissed her mouth and closed her eyes.
The president’s head stilled as he left his pages for the teleprompter.
He already did.
Inhaling, Reginald drew the gun.
The president’s tone fell ominously, as though sensing his doom. “We face a hostile ideology,” he said to the camera, “global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration.”
The Champions had the Soviet Union on its knees.
“We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.”
And that’s why you had us killed, you lying son of a bitch.
The rage Reginald had been clamping down climbed his neck like a fuse and ignited inside his skull. He peered around. All eyes were on the president. Reginald called up the image of Madelyn on her side, her windpipe severed. He aimed for the president’s forehead.
“Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications,” the president continued.
Reginald’s finger hesitated against the taut trigger.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence…”
He’s warning us?
“…whether sought or unsought…”
Holy shit, he’s warning the American public.
“…by the military-industrial complex.”
The Derringer, which seemed to have taken on a great weight, sank from his view.
“The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”
Reginald slipped the Derringer back inside his shirt, managing to re-tape it to his pounding chest. He fastened the button and straightened his tie, his gaze never straying from the president.
If there was an emotion Reginald could discern above all others, it was fear. And there it was: in the president’s eyes, his voice, his words. Even now he was appealing to an “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” to check the defense industry’s growing power. The president might have helped to seed the new industry, but the man had seen its gluttony, and now he was powerless to stop it.
Reginald staggered back a step, jarring one of the lights. Mickey looked over from his camera, one brow raised: You all right, kid? Reginald-as-Wally nodded and lifted his hand apologetically.
But he wasn’t all right.
He had come within seconds of assassinating the President of the United States.
An innocent man.
23
By the time Reginald stepped off the bus and onto an ice-crusted sidewalk along U Street, he was an aging black man
again. The neighborhood was midnight-quiet. He limped toward his place on Wallach, tipping his hat toward couples and musicians leaving the clubs for the night.
Following the farewell address, Reginald had received the president’s thanks and a handshake, helped the crew load production equipment, ridden in the front seat back to the news station (“Sure you’re all right, kid?” Mickey had asked him. “Don’t seem yourself tonight, like your sense of humor’s gone missing”), and then walked four blocks to an alley to change his identity.
Now he breathed the boozy, late-night smells of U Street, no closer to who had murdered Madelyn and his compatriots than when he’d left the neighborhood hours earlier.
He cycled through the suspects.
Halstead had proven to be a dead end. Reginald had been convinced of that by their meeting. But their meeting had thrown a new suspect into the light: the emerging defense industry — what Eisenhower had ominously called “the military-industrial complex.” Made sense. The defense industry needed a large and permanent enemy to remain profitable. The Soviet Union filled that role nicely. Maybe that was the reason, after pushing the Soviets from Berlin and half of Eastern Europe, Champions began showing up dead.
Don Danowski had gone first. An apparent drug overdose.
Next, Gerald Diggs. Failed car brakes.
Shirley Syson had been beaten to death and dumped in the Potomac.
Henry “Titan” Tillman had joined her.
And then Madelyn Graves.
Madelyn and their child.
Reginald Perry, the last Champion standing, was a fugitive. Someone on the inside had supplied the killer his cells. Not Director Halstead. Not Eisenhower’s people. So who did that leave? Wolfson, head of security? Colonel Antilla, their mission leader? Reginald shook his head. Halstead said he had people watching them. And besides, Reginald’s gut told him it wasn’t them.
At the corner of Fourteenth Street, Reggie limped through the exhaust of an idling cab.
What about Assistant Director Kilmer? New to the Program last fall, he’d largely kept to the sidelines, watching with youthful but calculating eyes. Aside from some brief exchanges, Reginald hadn’t really talked to him. Neither had the other Champions. Halstead vouched for him, sure, but who was this guy? Where had he come from? Might he have connections to the defense industry? At present he was in South America on some sort of recruiting mission.
XGeneration, Books 1-3: You Don't Know Me, The Watchers, and Silent Generation Page 76