Fate of the Union

by Max Allan Collins

  Reeder said to Rogers, “At least we’re on the end. Maybe we won’t be taken for major supporters.”

  “Right,” she said, amused. “Really low profile.”

  A crowd this size—he’d estimate well over three thousand, near capacity—turned individual chatting among attendees into a roar, an ocean-worthy tide threatening to wash over the stage. His old Secret Service juices were flowing as he tried to look out into the hall, particularly the seating toward the front, but the TV lights were so bright that the audience was mostly a blur.

  Even finding spaces between bursts of brightness, he was not positioned to see much of anything, not there on stage, risers climbing behind him. Up on the top row, he’d have had a much better view of floor seating, which lacked the slope of a more modern theater—from here, a short person seated behind a tall person became invisible.

  From a security standpoint, especially from the stage, Constitution Hall had always been a nightmare venue. No wonder Akers seemed troubled—Reeder would be, too, if he were among those in charge of Benjamin’s safety.

  Around them now were wealthy donors, few of whom Reeder recognized; they tended to be former backers of conservative candidates. In more prominent evidence were some A-list TV and movie stars known previously as supporters of liberal candidates.

  The house lights went down and the applause came up, and within seconds, the hall was on its feet, including those around them, which forced Rogers and Reeder to their feet as well. Rogers didn’t seem to mind, but Reeder felt manipulated.

  But he applauded anyway. Despite the bright lights, Reeder could make out waving signs with such slogans as COMMON SENSE FOR AMERICA and BENJAMIN FOR PRESIDENT. As the seconds dragged into minutes, the audience only intensified its applause.

  Finally, just as the thunder seemed about to diminish, Adam Benjamin, in a blue off-the-rack suit with white shirt and red tie, strode out from the wings, beaming to the crowd and waving, walking right by Rogers and Reeder. Now the applause rose to its former apex and beyond.

  Akers emerged from the wings, close on Benjamin’s heels, and took position at the top of the stairs just to the right of Rogers.

  A spotlight followed Benjamin and stopped with him as he paused to stand and wave, poised between Akers and Rogers, the speaker nodding to the crowd in humble acceptance of their adoration.

  Just as the applause began to diminish, Benjamin turned, nodded to Reeder, then strode to the podium. He patted the air to silence the crowd, which of course only inflamed them further.

  Benjamin stepped away from the podium, smiled at the crowd, shaking his head, finally putting a big show of putting his finger to his lips. They laughed, and applauded even more, the crowd well aware of its costarring role in the spectacle.

  Finally Benjamin moved to the podium and the crowd took their seats.

  “Usually,” he said, in his casual way, “a speech like this begins: ‘My fellow Americans.’ But the politicians who address you that way don’t view you as their ‘fellow’ anything. They view you as, well, I guess . . . a kind of obstacle. Those hypocrites calling you ‘Americans’ is almost an insult, because these politicians . . . not all, but many . . . don’t really believe in America. At least not the Common Sense version that the founding fathers had in mind.”

  He paused to let them applaud again and seemed flattered when the crowd again got to its feet. When those on the stage did the same, Reeder reluctantly joined them. Just because he liked what this guy had to say didn’t make him any happier about being played like this.

  With a palm, Benjamin quieted the crowd and the applause gradually thinned and seats were again taken.

  But one man was still on his feet.

  One man was in fact coming down the left outside aisle, quickly, applauding as he came, as if his enthusiasm couldn’t be contained. The spotlight on Benjamin meant some of the other bright lights were off now, and Reeder could see the guy pretty clearly.

  Akers apparently hadn’t seen the man, his eyes on the front row where two audience members were on their feet and coming toward the stage, applauding, maybe just wanting a closer look. One of Benjamin’s security staff cut in front of them and the pair backed up to their seats.

  At the podium, Benjamin was saying, “Our two once-great political parties have been driven to the far left and far right, leaving the rank and file among us alone in the middle, without representation.”

  The two at right taken care of, Reeder swung his attention back to the guy in that outside aisle, who was now almost to the stairs onto the stage at far left. Surely security near the stage would grab him—but where were they? The audience member approaching, applauding, looked respectable enough—navy blue suit, white shirt, shades of red-striped tie, echoing the speaker’s own wardrobe. A thirty-something professional, sandy hair cut short.

  “Everybody tells me,” Benjamin was saying, “that it’s impossible for a third-party candidate to win. But what if that third-party candidate represents the vast majority of Americans in the common-sense middle?”

  Could this be Reeder’s attacker at Bryson Security?

  Was it the blond from the SIM card?

  At this distance, and with the bright lights, Reeder couldn’t be sure. Half out of his chair, he was about to yell to Akers, to alert him, but the security man was turning toward the left side of the stage, having apparently spotted the guy, so yelling might only distract Akers, who had this.

  Then the approaching figure’s hand slipped under the suit coat and came back with something.

  “Gun!” Reeder yelled.

  A collective gasp came up from the crowd, sucking the air from the room and silencing the speaker as Akers reached for his own piece on his hip under his unbuttoned suit coat . . .

  . . . but too late.

  The sandy-haired figure pointed a sound-suppressed automatic at Akers, who fell to his knees as if pleading to the man not to shoot.

  Only Akers had already been hit, the silenced shot inaudible over the noise of the crowd, who were now reacting in screaming horror and yelling amazement.

  But Reeder had seen the reduced muzzle flash and, instinct taking over, he leapt from his chair, Rogers rising, too.

  Gun still in hand, Akers was trying to get up, the bullet having hit him in his Kevlar vest, but the sandy-haired man—up on the stage now, at Reeder’s far left—leveled what was probably a .45, wearing the bulky extension of a sound suppressor, right at the agent, hitting Akers twice in the side, under the arms, where the Kevlar didn’t cover.

  Then the sandy-haired man (not the SIM card blond at all) wheeled toward Benjamin at the podium, the big automatic with its extended snout pointing the speaker’s way.

  Three thousand–plus were on their feet shrieking now, like a hellish choir, while members of Benjamin’s security force were coming toward the stage, too little, too late.

  This time Reeder heard the cough of the silenced weapon, and the crunch of metal meeting wood as the bullet slammed into the podium just as he threw himself at Benjamin, taking him to the floor, onto his side, covering him as he would a president, bracing for the impact of any rounds from the assassin that might try to get through him to their target.

  Reeder flinched at the whipcrack of a round, fired nearby, but not a silenced one, a Glock round, and knew he was all right.

  Confirming that came: “Clear!”

  Rogers.

  Staying on top of Benjamin, who was still on his side, face to the crowd, Reeder shifted enough to see the would-be assassin sprawled on the stage, eyes open wide and a black-rimmed, scarlet-dripping hole in his mid-forehead.

  Rogers, on stage, Glock gripped in both hands, swiftly scanned the crowd for other shooters. The hall was half-empty now, many having fled, others frozen on their feet at their seats, some recording the pandemonium with their cells, while the camera crews on their platforms left and right kept rolling. The reporters, on both the left and right of the hall (and politically as well, for that mat
ter), were to a man and woman hiding under their tables.

  Frank Elmore materialized and leaned in to say, “Mr. Reeder, we’ll take it from here,” and Reeder rose while four security men in “COMMON SENSE” windbreakers helped the stunned Benjamin to his feet, and formed a phalanx around him, hustling him offstage.

  Reeder rushed to the fallen Akers, where Rogers was already down at the man’s side, trying to staunch the bleeding with her jacket. As Reeder knelt opposite her, Rogers lifted her bloody jacket so Reeder could appraise the red-gushing entry wounds under the man’s other arm.

  She gave Reeder a look.

  He gave her one back.

  She returned to keeping pressure against the fallen man’s side with the jacket, for what good it would do.

  Akers, his flesh now a wet-newspaper gray, grabbed Reeder’s wrist with surprising strength.

  “Cap . . .” Akers said. “Cap it . . . all.”

  “Cap it all? You mean, Capitol?”

  Akers swallowed and nodded once. “. . . Senk.”

  “You mean ‘sink’? What about sink?”

  The grip on Reeder’s wrist was limp now. “No! No . . . Senk.”

  “Senk. Is that a name, Jay? Is that—”

  But Akers was gone, eyes rolled back as if staring at the ceiling, where netted balloons awaited a celebratory release not to come.

  Uniformed police were moving quickly down the aisles now. Soon FBI and Homeland Security agents would descend on Constitution Hall. Rogers stood guard over the dead security man while Reeder went over to where the sandy-haired shooter lay dead as hell on his side, a mere trickle of red out the puncture of a forehead entry wound, while the larger exit wound had puked blood, brains, and bone onto the stage.

  Reeder knelt and had a closer look at the man’s face—no, this was not Bryson’s blond, but could possibly be the attacker from the security office. He pulled back the man’s shirt and jacket cuffs, both arms—no Special Forces tattoo. So this wasn’t the man recorded on the Skyway Farer motel security cam.

  So who was the man who wanted Adam Benjamin dead?

  Elmore was coming over to him again. Reeder stood and met him halfway, near the bullet-pocked podium. Rogers came over and fell in at Reeder’s side, two DC uniformed men huddling around the fallen Akers now.

  “Thanks to the two of you,” Elmore said, as if he were reporting the weather, “Adam Benjamin is alive and well.”

  Rogers said, “Just doing my job.”

  Reeder said, “Instinct kicks in. You know.”

  “Mr. Benjamin would very much like to thank you both personally.”

  Rogers said, “That won’t be necessary,” just as Reeder was saying, “No need.”

  “He’s quite insistent.”

  Bohannon and Wade, from Rogers’s team, were coming swiftly down an aisle. Just behind them, trench coat flapping, came DC homicide detective Pete Woods.

  Reeder asked Elmore, “Where is Mr. Benjamin?”

  “Heading back to the hotel.”

  “What hotel?”

  “The Holiday Inn Express in Falls Church, of course.”

  Rogers gave Reeder a wide-eyed, you-gotta-be-kidding-me look. He shrugged.

  Elmore was saying, “We can arrange a limo for you.”

  Detective Woods, approaching, overheard that and said, a little louder than necessary, “Mr. Reeder and Ms. Rogers won’t be needing a limo tonight! We’ll be having conversations with them that may last some time.”

  Reeder gave Elmore a shrug. “You’ll have to convey our regrets.”

  The majordomo nodded curtly, then disappeared into the wings.

  Reeder said to Woods, “Let’s have a look at our dead would-be assassin.”

  Woods didn’t argue as Reeder led the way, Rogers falling in behind the homicide detective, perhaps not eager for a closer look at the man she’d killed.

  “Watch your step,” Reeder said. “Little messy right over there—see it?”

  Woods looked a little pale around the gills. Homicide man or not, he was still new to the job.

  Reeder knelt near the corpse and Woods crouched near Reeder, who said, “This isn’t the blond from the SIM card. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “By the build, it might be the guy I mixed it up with at Bryson’s, so it could also make him your uniformed officer’s killer. Might even be one of the guys who murdered Chris.”

  Woods frowned at Reeder. “‘One of the guys’?”

  “Detective, Chris Bryson could handle himself—former Secret Service agent, armed, not a small man. Our failed assassin here, all by himself, could hardly incapacitate Bryson and hang him with his own belt.”

  Opposite them, Bohannon had squatted next to the shooter; with a latex-gloved hand, he pressed the dead man’s thumb to his smartphone screen, utilizing its fingerprint ID app. A moment later, the screen displayed the results.

  Bohannon said, “Thomas Louis Stanton.” He scrolled through a few screens. “At first glance? A solid citizen . . . until tonight.”

  Rogers asked, “Prints on file because of military service?”

  “Yep. Honorable discharge twenty years ago.”

  She frowned. “How does a ‘solid citizen’ turn into a political assassin?”

  Bohannon gave her half a smile and said, “This app just does fingerprints.”

  Over the next twenty-four hours, they would surely come to know Thomas Louis Stanton inside and out. For now, though, Reeder and Rogers had hours ahead of them of police interviews, and after that FBI debriefings.

  But it could be worse. It was a bad night to be a rank-and-file cop. This had been a hall filled with up to 3,500 eye witnesses, many of whom had beat it out before the boys in blue showed, though enough remained that a staggering number of names would need collecting for later interviews. And all of that news footage would have to be collected and looked at closely.

  “Shit,” Reeder said, aloud, something occurring to him, then turned to Rogers. “I have to call Amy and tell her I’m all right.”

  “Did your daughter know you were going to be at the event tonight?”

  He put a hand on his forehead as if he were taking his own temperature. “No, but this is going to hit the news and is probably already all over the net. Don’t you think those TV crews uploaded everything they caught right on the spot, before the cops could seize it?”

  Rogers grinned. “Amy’s the least of your worries.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Those cameras caught you throwing yourself on Adam Benjamin, ready to take another bullet for a great man. Joe Reeder, welcome back to the twenty-four-hour news cycle—you’re a hero again.”

  “Shit,” he said.

  “All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don’t.

  And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.”

  Robert F. Kennedy, 64th Attorney General of the United States, Senator from New York, 1965–1968.

  Section 45, Grid U-33.5, Arlington National Cemetery.

  TWELVE

  Patti Rogers had expected to be answering questions for hours either at Convention Hall or DC Homicide, but that changed in a hurry when—on the phone she’d just rescued from her bloody jacket—she got a call from the Director himself.

  “Special Agent Rogers,” came the deep rasp of a man she’d rarely spoken to, much less seen, “you need to report here to Assistant Director Fisk as soon as possible.”

  She swallowed. “Sir, at this juncture, this is not our investigation. Detective Peter Woods from DC Homicide is on the scene, as are several of his men.”

  “Put him on the phone.”

  She was still near the fallen Akers; Woods with Reeder and Bohannon were across the stage by the dead shooter. Uniformed men swarmed the hall, but right now the stage itself was limited to a handful of law enforcement officers—and Reeder, of course.

  She summoned Woods with a flip
of her fingers and he frowned but came over.

  “What?”

  “Not what,” Rogers said. “Who—the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

  The young cop’s eyebrows went up and he took the cell and said, “Detective Peter Woods, sir.”

  Soon Agents Wade and Bohannon were leading Woods, Reeder, and Rogers (backed up by several uniformed men) through the wings. No sign of Benjamin and his people, who by all rights should have stayed but essentially took advantage of the confusion to leave before anything official kicked in.

  They were whisked past dressing rooms, stage gear, backstage crew (herded by two uniformed cops), and out a rear door into a waiting black SUV, which the Director had apparently dispatched before Rogers had even been called. The driver, a solemn male agent she didn’t recognize, gunned the vehicle and they sped away from Constitution Hall. The interior of the vehicle was almost as cold as outside—heater hadn’t even had the chance to warm up yet.

  An incident like this, so close to the White House, meant the entire DC area was heading into lockdown. The chance that any media could follow them was fairly remote—those in attendance were being held at the hall—and, anyway, the driver was rocketing through city streets with blue and red lights flashing.

  She shared the backseat with Reeder. Detective Woods was in the front passenger seat, her guys Bohannon and Wade remaining behind at the crime scene.

  Rogers phoned Anne Nichols to assemble the team in their office, then called Miggie—not an official task force member—to join them. Both already knew what had gone down, the shooting all over TV and the net.

  Woods, with just a little edge, craned to ask Reeder, “So you’ve saved another political figure from assassination. How does that happen three times?”

  Reeder said flatly, “Just lucky I guess.”

  Woods frowned but turned back around, as they slowed to pass security before entering the J. Edgar Hoover Building’s underground garage. Rogers was not surprised to see news vans lined up out front.

  “Welcome to the media shitstorm,” she said to Reeder.