The president, ignoring Lincoln’s precedent of brevity, went on for another forty minutes. Cobra had what he needed, so he drifted away.
Carolyn White wondered whether the president knew more about the Russians than any of his advisers.
ALEXANDR LEBED WATCHED a tape of President Tolliver’s speech and listened to the translation. He was seething; the American had him by the balls. He had just finished chewing a new asshole in the Chief of the Naval General Staff when the latter informed him that the fleet could not sortie, perhaps not in days, perhaps not in weeks, because the ships were undermanned and in poor repair, and because mobs of farmers in Belarus and Lithuania had torn up railways and roads and felled trees across them, halting the convoys of tanks and other vehicles that had been ordered not to shoot except if actually attacked. “Tell the Americans,” Lebed told Minister Shepilov. “Something. Anything. We’ll accept his offer of joint exercises, but with only a small battle group. Tell that asshole Nieto Castro to back off and say so publicly. He could hold elections, or some damn thing.”
“Mr. President!” Shepilov said emphatically. “That amounts to surrender.”
“What the fuck would you have me do, Shepilov?” the president roared. “The fucking navy can’t sail, and the troops and their equipment are bogged down on ruined, muddy roads in Belarus and Lithuania. What would you do, and fuck your mother!”
Shepilov blanched and stepped back. “I’ll make an appointment with the American ambassador,” he said. “I’d like a little time to work on the statement.”
“Fine, take an hour or two; there’s little to say. And tell Admiral Klimov to get at least a squadron underway; a cruiser or two, some destroyers, and that useless aircraft carrier Kusnetzov. With a few planes on deck, if he can find any. Do that before you go home tonight.”
Shepilov rose. “Exactly so, Mr. President.”
PRESIDENT TOLLIVER STRODE into the Cabinet Room, to applause. The president waved away shouted questions from the press, and the reporters and cameramen were shooed out. Tolliver went to his chair and waved at his aides to be seated. “You all have copies of President Lebed’s reply. I’ve just spoken to the man, a very good conversation. He agrees we have much business in common in Europe, Africa and Asia, and asks merely if he may ‘know our intentions’ in respect of Cuba.”
Clarissa, at the end of the table, frowned. The Miami Cubans wanted a lot more than a few overflights and a token force on the ground in the southeastern mountains. She tried to catch her husband’s eye but could not.
Admiral Austin cleared his throat. By protocol, he shouldn’t speak unless invited to by the Secretary of Defense, who sat directly across from him at the president’s side, but he rarely observed the courtesy. “We can reduce the overflights, make them less obvious but still enough to prevent the Cuban Air Force from doing anything effective against the freedom fighters. Our intelligence, plus what we get from our friends in Miami, indicates that very few of their aircraft are in flying condition anyway. In another week, way before the Russians could have anything even out of the Baltic, the rebels should have enough men, beans and bullets to take care of themselves, if they gain popular support.”
“And if they don’t gain popular support?” Clarissa asked sharply. The question was pointed at her husband, but he stared straight ahead.
Admiral Austin shrugged. “Then it’s their problem. We’ve given them a helluva better start than Kennedy did at the Bay of Pigs; they have to make it work, and unless the Miami leaders are complete liars, they should be able to do so. Fidel gave Cuba nothing but sacrifice, but at least he was a commanding presence. Nieto has nothing holding him up but an army and police that don’t have any commitment to his person and seem to have little stomach for a fight.”
Clarissa wondered if that would be enough. She would have to talk to a few people in Miami.
“I’ve decided to speak to the nation after I confer again with President Lebed,” Tollliver continued. “We’ve agreed tentatively to a summit in the next six months, and I want to reassure the people that the steps that we’ve taken, wrongly, in my view, branded as aggressive, are having positive results. There’ll be a rally of antiwar and civil rights groups at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday. It’s kind of a commemoration of the rallies thirty-five years ago. I’ll speak; Zeke is setting it up. I’ll rebut the notion that I’ve hidden myself from the people, and do it in front of a less-than-friendly crowd. Zeke, make sure the loudspeakers are really loud.”
A ripple of nervous laughter circled the table. Clarissa, stone-faced, wondered why Rupert was wrapping himself in Lincoln. She also wondered what the Washington Post would do with the story of the reporter’s murder and his Little Cheyenne story. They’d have to report the killing in the Saturday paper, but it was too much to hope for that they would bury the bigger story in the littleread Saturday edition. Front page Sunday, she guessed. Better then that Rupert speak Saturday; it might be the last day anyone would listen.
J J Early sat in one of the chairs away from the table. He’d go down to the Executive Protection Service, as the White House detail of the Secret Service was called, and see what they had put together for security at the wide-open steps of the Lincoln Memorial and the vast Mall that stretched all the way to the Capitol. About as good a spot as a shooter could want, a vast open space with tall buildings along both sides on Constitution and Independence Avenues.
J J figured the Secret Service had to have the area well covered. After all, the Lincoln Memorial shot was nothing but a mirror image of the problem of protecting a president being sworn in on the Capitol steps. J J would have a chat with them, then hit the streets.
Tolliver closed the meeting, panning the room with a gentle smile. J J had an eerie feeling the president knew something violent was coming, and that perhaps he welcomed it.
24
ADMIRAL DANIELS MET Alfred Thayer at the Officers’ Club at Fort Myer, Virginia, where both were members. They chose a quiet table far from the lunchtime crowd at the bar. “The mechanic hasn’t done it,” Daniels said, without offering any greeting. “Does your ex-Green-Beanie know where he is?”
“I don’t know, and I’ve told you I don’t want to micromanage this thing. His deadline is tomorrow.”
“The president is going to address the rally of aging radicals at the Lincoln Memorial tomorrow,” Daniels said. “It won’t be announced until an hour before.”
“How will the shooter find out?” the old banker asked.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Daniels said angrily. “Alfred, we ought to find this man and control him. In the last few weeks, even days, Tolliver’s apparent blunders have gone from strength to strength. He’s revealed to all the world the Russians’ military unpreparedness, set Cuba on a road to perhaps throwing off communism once and for all, and quieted the cities of this country with a few high-sounding but relatively cheap programs. Maybe this thing shouldn’t be done.”
Thayer looked at the old admiral, his shaking hands, his impossibly thick glasses. “I’m afraid I agree. I’ll have my security firm look harder, but so far they’ve found nothing since they tracked him through National Airport to Alexandria.”
“Perhaps we should alert the Secret Service.”
“How could we do that without implicating ourselves? And aren’t they supposed to be prepared for a lone gunman.”
“The answer to your first question is that I may have a way. The answer to the second, is no, they aren’t. They’re no less complacent than they were in Dallas in 1963.”
“But you can do something?”
“Perhaps. Can your people find the assassin?”
“Perhaps.”
“He’ll have to be terminated, of course, Colonel Thayer. He knows far too much.”
“Of course, Admiral. But first we must find him.”
Admiral Daniels rose, painfully pushing himself up on his red and white cane. “I’ll make a call.”
COBRA STUDIED THE videotape
of the president speaking at Gettysburg from his room in a Motel 6 in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and got the rhythm of his head movement. Cobra had selected the motel because he would have easy access to Washington without having to cross any river bridges or other obvious choke points.
He called the National Park Service to ask about the grandstands and barricades he had seen being set up in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall. Rally, he was told. He called the White House Visitors’ Office and was told there were to be no tours offered tomorrow, Saturday, because of the crowd in front of the Lincoln Memorial that might stretch back to the Ellipse south of the White House. He told the helpful young lady he had come from France and hoped to see the president, even at a distance. He’ll speak at the rally, around noon, she said. We just found out.
Patrice Lumumba had had better security, Cobra thought. It was time to find a spot, to plan the attack, and then execute it. He climbed into his dented van and drove into the capital.
ADMIRAL DANIELS TELEPHONED J J Early at the Mayflower Hotel. Early had served under Daniels in Vietnam and they had kept in touch. He got the Mayflower address from a quick call to J J’s wife in Uvalde. There was no answer in J J’s room; Daniels left an urgent message with several callback numbers.
COBRA DRESSED IN coveralls stolen a week ago from a van belonging to Potomac Gas and Electric. He slipped in and out of buildings on both Constitution and Independence Avenues. He had a photo badge stolen with the uniform that looked nothing like him. He carried a large toolbox. No one paid him any attention.
He decided on the roof of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Building, on Independence Avenue, east of the Lincoln Memorial. The building was still called that, although the Bureau that made U.S. currency had moved years ago to a new facility a few blocks away. The building, a turn-of-the-century brick structure about five stories high, was now occupied by the United States Auditors. Cobra neither knew what they did nor cared, but reasoned that they would have less security than a facility that literally printed money.
Cobra concealed his equipment in a service room in the basement, in a locker that must belong to one of the service workers. He cut off the padlock and substituted one of his own. He went up to the roof, carrying only a laser range finder that had come in with his rifle. He calculated the distance to Lincoln’s knees at 1,247 meters. It was a much longer shot than he would like, but the Mall was actually much less surrounded by aiming points than he had thought. Along Constitution Avenue to the north of the Memorial were buildings housing the American Pharmaceutical Institute, the National Academy of Sciences, the Federal Reserve, and the Department of the Interior. Cobra was sure all these buildings would be heavily secured. Then there was the open Ellipse, south of the White House. He had to stay outside the perimeter the Secret Service would establish. He guessed five hundred meters maximum; Oswald in Dallas (or whoever actually took the shot from the rear) had barely a one hundred and twenty meter shot. Cobra’s had been sixty or less; dead flat.
Cobra walked around the roof, getting a feel for the place. The wind was mild from the south, but it would be a cold night. He would not leave the building until the job was done.
He surveyed the roof. The building was old and had chimneys, probably long disused. Lots of places of concealment, and places to dump his old rifle when he was finished. The roof, with its clear view of the Memorial, might of course be patrolled, even at so great a distance. If it was he would have to bail out and make another plan. He felt a frisson of fear, but the Cobra was a master of concealment, and escape.
Cobra was willing to bet the Secret Service would have most of their assets in the crowd, close to the podium. John Wilkes Boothe had shot President Lincoln from a foot away. Not much different for Presidents Garfield, McKinley, and Reagan, or for an attempt on Theodore Roosevelt.
JJ EARLY MET Special Agent Matt Blackstone in his shabby office in the White House basement. They howdied and shook, and reminisced a while about how J J had handed the governor of Texas off to Blackstone during the presidential campaign. Pleasantries completed, J J asked, “What special precautions are you making for this speech to the mob in the Mall tomorrow?”
“Nothing special, J J. The usual is very tight. Why might you ask?”
“Gotta feeling, Matt. Can’t tell you why; it’s a million tiny things. The hairs on the back of my neck feel a shooter out there.”
Matt swung his booted feet off his desk and down to the floor with a crash. “We’re always on the lookout for that, and this president has pissed off more than most. Any idea who?”
“None.”
“Well, you know the drill. Every building with a clear shot at the Memorial will be swept, starting”—he looked at his watch—“about now, as the workers clear out for the weekend. Then the buildings will be sealed, guarded outside, patrolled inside, shooters on the roofs, all along Constitution Avenue. They’re damn near all government buildings, so it’s no problem.”
“What about the south side? Independence Avenue?”
“No good high points within a thousand meters, but they’ll be checked and sealed. We only got so many agents, J J.”
“A thousand meters,” J J thought. “I never had anybody could shoot that good.”
“We don’t either; nor does the FBI or the CIA. Only ones are the Navy SEALS, with that five-foot-long cannon, the Barrett 82 Al. 50 caliber sniper rifle. They claim accuracy to four thousand meters, but they keep those weapons locked away. Besides, it’s not exactly a concealable weapon.”
J J fidgeted. “I got me a Big Horn Sheep at about seven hundred yards once, in Idaho, with an old Sharps Fifty my granddaddy owned and I rebuilt. My own loads; I figured I could hit what I wanted at a thousand. ’Course, it was a flat shot across a canyon, and no wind, and I had to adjust the rear sight for a drop of near six feet.”
“Not hardly reliable, J J, though doubtless you be a fine rifleman. No, we’ll be looking for a sniper from a few hundred yards; likely much less, and the crazies like John Hinkley who’ll try to get right up close. The worst nightmare is a lunatic with ten sticks of dynamite taped around his waist and a Bic lighter.”
“Or a man with a pistol and a death wish.”
“Or a bomb, got up close somehow we don’t find it, command detonated. It’s a bitch, J J, you know that. We’d like to keep the man in a bulletproof bubble, but you know we can’t.”
J J got up to go. “You mind I snoop around some of those tall buildings?”
Matt handed him a pass with a red diagonal stripe. “You think of anything, you call me right away, you hear?”
J J took the pass and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. “You bet.”
SECRET SERVICE AGENTS Ben Green and Carla Code walked across the Mall after checking buildings along Constitution Avenue as far south as 14th Street. They were one of fifteen agent pairs assigned to the duty, and by seven P.M. they were tired. Their last call was the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Building on Independence Avenue, a site with a clear view of the Lincoln Memorial but three-quarters of a mile away. They took the elevator to the top floor, climbed the stairs to the roof, and admired the view. They could see the Lincoln Memorial brightly lit by floodlights, but the statue was in deep shadow. “From here,” Carla said. “The only chance would be a shoulder-fired missile.”
“I reckon,” Ben said, walking around the roof, expecting nothing and finding nothing. Agent Code followed. “Let’s run the floors and get out of here.”
They went down the stairs, checking the stairwells and each floor. Upon instruction from the Secret Service, offices had been left unlocked so the checking went quickly. The bottom three floors were where the presses used to run, turning out banknotes. Ben Green was about to suggest bagging it on the fourth floor when the two agents rounded a corner and encountered a black man in coveralls waxing the floor with a big round electric buffer. He pushed along a cleaning cart with a deep canvas bin as he went. The two agents stopped him and politely asked to see h
is identification. The cleaner held out the photo I.D. hanging from a bead chain around his neck. “Be Rufus Coombs, bawse. Night cleaner.”
Code looked at the photo with tired eyes. Even though the picture was in color, as in so many photos of black men the face was little more than a dark dot. “What time you get off shift, Rufus?” she asked.
“I only just started. Be gone five A.M, before the Saturday folks arrive.”
“You check out with security in the lobby?” Carla asked.
“Every morning, ma’am.”
Ben Green reached down into the bin, shifting dirty towels, rags, and supplies. Carla Code made a note of Rufus’s name and I.D. number, so she could alert the guard at the door to make sure Rufus left as scheduled. The building was too far away from the Memorial to warrant a Secret Service detail. “Good night, Mr. Coombs,” Agent Code said.
“G’night,” Rufus said, grinning, as the agents boarded an elevator and descended.
Agents Green and Code passed the security guard in the lobby. He was all but asleep. Whatever the United States Auditors kept in there, no one was real concerned about guarding it. Carla handed her note about Rufus Coombs to the fat black man in his unpressed black uniform. “Yeah, old Rufus,” he said, making no effort to suppress a yawn. “Been here longer than me. I’ll see him off in the morning.”
Behold a Pale Horse Page 26