by David Wind
Knowing there was nothing more he could do to convince Tanaka, or anyone else, to help him, Chapin went back inside the hotel room, where he found Brannigan sitting on the bed, waiting for him. She had the bedsheet over her breasts, tucked securely in place by her arms.
“What if Sanders won’t work with you? What if they take you?”
Chapin crossed the room and went to the bed. He sat on the edge, facing her, and stroked her cheek. “Then they take me and it’s up to Eli and his people, and you.”
“Kevin,” she whispered, reaching out to him. He drew her to him, lifting her into his arms. The sheet slipped down, and her breasts pressed warmly against him. He wanted to make love to her again; but instead, released her.
He looked at the clock. It was six-forty. In seven hours and twenty minutes, the ceremonies would begin. In seven hours and twenty minutes, he would either stop a forty-year-old plan from reaching its culmination, or he would fail, and with his failure, America would fall.
“Kevin.” Her eyes were wide, her mouth soft and unsmiling. “I love you.”
He smiled. “Yeah, me, too. Now, get out of bed and get those cute buns moving.”
Smiling, she did as he asked. While she showered, he called room service and ordered breakfast.
Then he went into the bathroom and joined her. A half hour later, Chapin watched Brannigan aimlessly push the food around her plate.
“You have to eat.”
She looked at him and shrugged. “I can’t. Kevin, I’m terrified about today. So much is riding on what we do. The responsibility...”
“It’s not the responsibility,” he corrected, reaching across the table to take her hand in his, “it’s the knowledge of what will happen if we fail.”
“We can’t.”
“Exactly. Now, you remember everything I told you?” She nodded.
“I take the press credentials, go to the front, and film everything. I keep the camera on the vice president at all times.”
“Exactly.”
“And you? Do you think Sanders will let you in there?” she asked, again.
Chapin stared past Brannigan and at the unobtrusively patterned wallpaper. Would Sanders let him in? If he judged Sanders accurately, yes. If he misjudged his old friend, then he would be dead and it wouldn’t matter. Chapin’s only consolation was knowing Eli would finish the job for him, if Sanders took him out of play. “Somehow, I’ll be up there,” Chapin said.
<><><>
Drapes covered the office windows. The morning view of Washington was gone. Three televisions sat on three carts, facing the long mahogany desk. Beneath each television, on a separate shelf, was a videotape machine.
The televisions were on, but the volumes muted. Each set showed a different network. Sokova did not want to miss any of the coverage of the ceremony. Today would give the world another earth shattering moment. Today would mark a new direction in the events of America.
The phone rang. Sokova glanced at the yellow blinking light of his private line. Only two people had the number.
He picked it up. “Yes?”
“Are there any last thoughts?”
Sokova smiled. “Just do your part, no more, no less.”
“As you say,” Robert Mathews’ twin brother agreed. “I will see you tonight at the swearing in.”
“Absolutely.” Sokova hung up. As soon as the president was dead, they would rush Mathews back to Washington. Unlike Lyndon Johnson, Mathews would refuse the swearing in until he was in the nation’s capital.
“The Nation’s Capital,” Sokova said aloud. His heart pumped just a little too fast. He closed his eyes, and willed himself to become calm. He was getting too old to allow any episodes of uncontrolled excitement. He had to be careful or he might not live long enough to see the country change.
But, he knew he didn’t have to be around to see that his convention had worked exactly as planned. Sokova knew what the results would be, and knew as well that he did not have to be around to watch the results. What he had done would be self-perpetuating. With the death of the president, the Sokova Convention would be unstoppable.
<><><><>
At exactly twelve p.m., Chapin walked toward Sanders, perspiration building beneath his arms and along his thighs. His nerves screamed, but he ignored everything and concentrated on Sanders. The agent’s features were tense yet expressionless. Chapin wondered if he were walking into a trap from which there would be no release.
As he neared Sanders, his stomach muscles tightened and clenched. Finally, five feet from Sanders stoic face, the Agent-In-Charge held up an identification badge. Chapin’s relieved exhalation was low and slow, and did not give him away.
“Here you go, Wilke,” Sanders said, handing him the pocket ID. While Chapin read and then clipped the ID to his breast pocket, Sanders turned to the two agents behind him and said, “Wilke has been assigned to take Grommer’s place. You guys work together before?” he asked the two agents.
They shook their heads as they looked at the bearded agent. “John Marsh and Daniel Asem, meet Chet Wilke,” Sanders said easily.
Chapin stepped forward and shook their hands as Sanders added to his lie. “Wilke’s been working undercover on the Mexican border. Narcotics. That’s how we got him in today.”
“Hope this doesn’t blow your cover,” said the agent Sanders had identified as John Marsh.
Chapin laughed. “The people I’ve been working on don’t watch television. At least not this kind.”
The two agents smiled and nodded at the little joke before they turned to Sanders. “Regular assignments?” asked the one called Marsh.
Sanders shook his head. “No. I’ll post the assignments in a half hour. In the meantime, I want another walk-through of the bleachers and the VIP seating areas. I want a double check on the media equipment, and then you can let the press in. Take everyone. Wilke, you come with me.”
When the agents left to follow Sanders’ orders, Chapin and Sanders went to the stage area. “What changed your mind?”
Sanders paused to stare at him. “A lot of different things. The queen, for one.” Sanders paused. “Until last night, I’d forgotten something Mathews had said to me,. But when you told me about the replacement queen, I remembered Mathews had mentioned he knew where the queen was, and he would be getting it back.”
Sanders paused, but Chapin sensed he had more to say
“I did a lot of thinking last night…a lot of remembering too. I thought of Mathews’ little idiosyncrasies, the things he did when he thought no one was watching him. Actions, like the way he held a telephone, or the way he sat when he read a book.”
Sander’s eyes flicked to Chapin. “There are differences. Subtle and hard to recognize, but they’re there. I also had to ask myself if what I was seeing wasn’t a subconscious thing you set off in my mind.”
“I understand,” Chapin said.
Sanders cleared his throat suddenly. “When I finally realized you were right—or at least I think you are right—I still couldn’t find a way to justify allowing you to be up on the platform with the president and the vice president, until I got a phone call from...a friend of yours, who persuaded me to believe you.”
His feeling of relief was good. Tanaka had come through for him. Still, what Sanders was doing was based on friendship and a hunch. The man was risking his career and the lives of the president and the vice president. “Thank you, Tom.”
Sanders shrugged uncomfortably. “How is it going to come down?”
“If I tell you, you’ll be looking for it. If they spot that in you, they’ll call it off and wait for another chance. Just do your job the way you always do. Let me handle it from here on.”
The Secret Service Agent gave him a searching. “I’ll get you your radio gear.”
“No.” Chapin pulled out an earpiece from his collar. “I have my own, on a different frequency. And, Tom, I need one more thing. There are to be no agents assigned to three rooftops. Those,” he sai
d, pointing to the building off to the left, and then to the building off to the right and to the other possible sniper site of the third building.
“I can’t pull those buildings out of assignment; they’ll know something’s wrong,” Sanders argued.
“Assign them, and then change the assignment afterward. Tell whichever agents you send to the buildings that you’re putting someone else on them. I don’t care what you do, or how, but no one goes up there.” Chapin appreciated the unease in Sanders’ eyes, but had to ignore it. “Tom, if it will ease your mind, I won’t carry a weapon.”
Sanders smiled. “Come on, Kevin, we both know damned well if you want to take someone out, you don’t need anything more than two and a half seconds and three fingers.”
<><><><>
From inside a corrugated maintenance shed on the roof of the office building, Eli Ben-Moshe watched what he believed to be the only possible spot the sniper would use. He and the man next to him had been watching the rooftop since two a.m.
“It’s ten. When will he arrive?” asked Ben-Moshe’s companion.
“Patience, Aaron. When the dignitaries arrive, so will the sniper.”
“And with luck, we will not die of heat prostration,” Aaron said, looking up at the tin roof of their hiding place.
Eli Ben-Moshe studied the younger agent. “With a little luck, we will not die at all...today.”
<><><><>
By one, the sky was clear and the day had warmed to a comfortable seventy-eight degrees. Chapin was sweating under his suit jacket. He wasn’t aware of it. His only concern was what would happen in two hours.
An estimated three thousand people filled the grandstands. In another area, farther away and well roped off, were several thousand others who had come to see all the hoopla. The journalists and reporters had arrived a half-hour before. They had joined their crews, who had been here for hours setting up the equipment in front of the raised platform. He’d looked for Brannigan and, unable to spot her, had rechecked the raised platform again.
Finally, with nothing left to do but wait, he stood close to the marks set up for the people who would be on the platform.
The president, the vice president, and the new Japanese prime minister would be standing near each other, about five feet behind the microphone.
The rest of the large entourage, consisting of American and Japanese politicians and officials, would be near the rear of the platform.
Chapin measured distances with his eye, and decided on the exact spot he would stand. It was two feet away and one foot behind Mathews.
Only when he believed he had everything worked out as well as was possible, did Chapin allow himself to worry about the sniper. So far, he’d had only two checks from Ben-Moshe. The first had been when he’d come onto the platform just after Sanders had given him his ID.
Ben-Moshe had spoken, telling him the view was perfect, but no sniper had appeared. Ben-Moshe’s second report had been the same as the first.
Both he and Ben-Moshe had figured the sniper would be in one of the offices of the building, and would come up after all the excitement began. The knowledge that the safety glass of the building’s windows would prevent a good single shot made it a certainty that the assassination would come from the roof. Chapin only wished that the man would show himself.
Although Chapin had not expected the sniper to be on the roof, exposing himself for too long a time before the speeches, he had expected the sniper to be in position by now.
He looked up at the building he and Ben-Moshe had chosen for the sniper site. It was to the left, on a slight angle toward where the lectern was set.
The line of the shot was straight on, given Etheridge’s predilection for turning his head slightly to the left. If his assessment was accurate, the assassin’s bullet would hit Etheridge’s forehead, dead center.
Turning slightly, he looked at the other two possible sites. The second best was slightly off to the right. A shot from that location would take Etheridge just above the right ear. It could be made, but had a higher chance of failure.
The third site was even farther to the right. That shot would hit Etheridge in the back of his head, when the president turned his head to the left. That was the riskiest shot of all. If the angle wasn’t perfect, the bullet could be deflected by Etheridge’s skull.
But, he told himself, Sokova would send only the best.
Doubt festered. Had he chosen wrong? He could not afford to be wrong. He reviewed the schedule of the ceremony. The mayor of Los Angeles would open the ceremony, followed by a speech from Mathews. Then, President Etheridge would give his speech, and the formal ceremonial presentation to the prime minister would follow, after which the Japanese prime minister would speak.
There was no advanced timetable, so no one knew how long any of the speeches would take.
Chapin paused in his thinking; a sensation of eyes on his back raised the hackles on his neck. He turned and found Brannigan near the edge of the platform, intently watching him. She smiled, briefly, and then looked away.
He felt better, having seen her.
“Let’s go, people,” Sanders called out.
Turning, he watched the Secret Service agents go to their assigned places. In the distance came the sirens of the motorcade’s police escort.
Then, the little earphone in Chapin’s left ear came alive with Ben-Moshe’s voice. “He’s here.”
Chapter Thirty-six
A bead of sweat trickled down Chapin’s spine. His stomach muscles were taut. The first speech was over. The mayor had spoken for ten minutes before introducing Vice President Robert Mathews. When Mathews finished, President Etheridge would take the lectern, give his speech, and then introduce Prime Minister Ishizaka.
Mathews walked up to the microphone and acknowledged the loud round of applause and cheers from the thousands seated in the portable bleachers.
Chapin had been worried about Mathews recognizing him from his visit in Wyoming. But when Mathews had come onto the platform, and the vice president’s eyes had met his, there was no sign of recognition. Chapin decided Mathews assumed he was one of Etheridge’s Secret Service people.
When Mathews went to the lectern and began his speech, Ben-Moshe’s voice came through the earpiece. “He’s setting his scope. You were right. The weapon is computer assisted.”
Chapin stared at Mathews, wondering how a man could have lived his entire life as a duplicate of another. It was beyond his comprehension how anyone could allow such a thing, rather than find his own identity.
Then he thought about what it must have been like to be pampered, spoiled, and never want for anything. To have whatever he needed at the instant he needed it, all for doing what little they asked of him.
Chapin exhaled. There was always another side to any given situation. He also understood Mathews’ twin brother had had no choice—at least not as a child. As he grew older and knew he was being groomed to become the president of the United States, would he, a man who knew nothing of the real of the world, want to stop it?
Chapin looked at the press pit. Brannigan stood near the edge, the camcorder in her hands pointed at Mathews.
He felt a sudden distance from everyone else in the world; in that out-of-phase instant, he understood all too clearly how much Leslie Brannigan meant to him. He wondered if he would live to tell her so. If he did, he would never again take the chance of losing her.
Turning back to the platform, he looked at Mathews, and prepared for what was coming. There could only be the here and now. If there was a future for him, it would come after he’d completed his job.
He studied Mathews’ face as the man spoke. Every gesture he made, every nuance in the cadence of his words, was the absolute duplicate of Robert Mathews. Dear God, he thought, Sokova’s plan would succeed exactly as he’d perfected it, unless they stopped him today.
From the corner of his eyes, he saw Tom Sanders on the opposite side of the dignitaries, in the same position as C
hapin.
Sanders was mimicking Chapin. Trying to protect by instinct, Sanders hoped to be in the right spot to help.
When Sanders’ eyes met his, he gave Sanders a slight motioning signal with his right hand. Sanders nodded and took a half step back.
Chapin let himself be satisfied with the miserly movement. He wanted more distance, but would accept what he got. “He’s loaded,” said Ben-Moshe.
A crawling sensation rippled up his spine. He had never felt this vulnerable before. A new respect for Sanders and his people grew. They did this every day.
Chapin shook away all extraneous thought and focused on Mathews. He listened to the man’s words without hearing them. His concentration was on the man’s face, and nothing else, as Mathews said, “In this new step toward complete cooperation, this meeting of East and West, we hope to solidify even further the friendship between our countries. We want to be more than political allies with Japan; we want to be partners on all levels.”
Mathews paused. He turned to look at the president and prime minister. He swept his arm in a gesture encompassing the two men. “As we stand here together and acknowledge our friendship, so should we stand in the face of the world.”
He turned back to face the audience and the cameras. “In the scheme of things political, Japan is one of the few countries who has stood behind us in these past years of indecision and economic and political upheaval. To look to a future without the Japanese as our most important Asian ally would be to look toward a future that holds nothing more than stagnation.”
Mathews paused. Chapin saw him tense his shoulders. What? Mathews drew in a deep breath and half turned. He brought his arm up, pointing to the president and the prime minister. “I would now, in the spirit of welcome, introduce to you, Prime Minister Ishizaka of Japan.”
Mathews stepped back abruptly. Warning bells went off inside Chapin’s head at the unscheduled change in the order of the speeches. He looked at Sanders, whose features were startled. Sanders turned to speak.