So the tears rilled down from behind those opaque lenses as Vincent Capezzi stood post over the coffin that had been strapped to the master bed in the flying White House. Other agents stood outside the door. Capezzi had wanted to be alone with the fallen man.
"We did our best," he said in a low voice as if the dead, unhearing ears could hear every word. "I want you to know that. We did our best for you. But there was nothing we could do."
The coffin, a simple white capsule of composite material, sat mutely on the oval bed.
"And you knew the risks. It doesn't make it right, but you knew the risks when you took the damn job."
There came a knock at the door.
"What is it?" Capezzi said impatiently. He had not finished what he had to say.
"ANC is reporting the President is dead," a voice said.
"Goddamn," said Capezzi, taking off his glasses and wiping his eyes with a linen handkerchief.
"It just broke."
"Has the Man been informed?"
"No."
"I'll do it," he said. When he stepped out into the narrow corridors, the glasses were back on his face and his face was again a fleshy rock.
Thank God for shades, he thought to himself as he knocked on the door with the Presidential seal.
A hoarse, dispirited voice said, "Yes?"
"Capezzi, sir. May I come in?"
"Is it important?"
"Very."
The door unlocked from within, and Vince Capezzi stepped in.
THE PRESIDENT of the United States wore shock on his face like a crumbling mud pack. He was looking out the window at the winter clouds, which reared up like gray-black mountains. He turned in his seat.
He wore a blue poplin windbreaker, the Presidential patch over his heart. There was still blood and brain matter on his shirtfront from the shooting.
"ANC has you dead," Capezzi told him.
The President of the United States snapped out of his spell. "Don't they know better than to go on the air with wild speculation?" The President caught himself. Since the day he took office, they had been tracking his political highs and lows as if he were some kind of fool IPO stock on NASDAQ.
"The other networks are sure to follow. It's a panic situation."
"Has the First Lady been told?"
"Yes. First thing. If she hears the bulletin, she'll know to discount it."
"And the wife of the agent who took the bullet meant for me?"
"No wife. No immediate family."
"Small comfort in that," the President said bitterly.
"He knew the risks of wearing his hair cut like yours and stepping out of the limo first, Mr. President. It was an invitation to take the first shot."
The President looked up. "What is it you boys call that duty?"
"Playing the designated goat, sir."
"I want his sacrifice made known to the American people."
"Sorry, sir. If we released those details, the next sniper will hold back that first shot until he's certain he has the right skull in his cross hairs."
The President made a tight fist. He rubbed his puffy eyes wearily. "I look like a low coward, running away like this," he said bitterly.
"Sorry. But in the event this is a conspiracy and not some lone agent, you have to be returned to the White House. It's for your own personal safety."
The President's eyes flared. "I needed to give that speech. You had no right to hustle me away like that! I'm the damn President of the United States."
"Our mandate to protect you supercedes your wishes," Capezzi said, trying to keep his voice calm. "You need to issue a statement, Mr. President, reassuring the nation."
The President seemed to deflate like a tire. "What I really need is a fresh shirt."
"I'll send your chief of staff in."
Vince Capezzi started to leave.
"Tell him to take his time. If the networks all go on the air with unsubstantiated rumors, they deserve to eat their broadcasts."
"Yes, sir," said Vince Capezzi, closing the door behind him.
Politicians, he thought. A good agent lay in his coffin, a bullet meant for the Chief Executive in his brain, and the true target still had the presence of mind to shuffle the deck before he dealt the next hand.
LIKE A REPEATING IMAGE, six stone-faced Secret Service special agents blocked Pepsie Dobbins's attempt to enter the Science Center at the University of Massachusetts Harbor Campus.
They were resealing the entrance doors with white barrier tape. Two ends of a broken seal hung from the spot where one of two sets of double doors came together.
"I'm Pepsie Dobbins," she said. "What can you tell me?"
"Get lost."
"I mean, what can you tell me about the conspiracy to assassinate the President?"
"Nothing."
"Ah-hah! Then there is a conspiracy."
Behind their aviator sunglasses the six stony faces grew long.
"Nobody said that," an agent said.
"Nobody has contradicted it, either," said Pepsie. She turned to her cameraman. "Did you get that on tape?"
The cameraman nodded. A mistake. Two burly agents strode up to him and relieved him of his Minicam. One said, "I'm confiscating this as evidence in an ongoing investigation" as the other slapped white protective tape over the cassette port.
"Don't you dare!" Pepsie snapped.
"It's done. And you have exactly thirty seconds to leave this campus or we'll confiscate you. "
"I still have my quote," Pepsie warned. "And if you people are involved in any cover-up, ANC News will be the first to see you hung."
"That's 'hanged,'" an agent said.
"How many people involved in the conspiracy?" demanded Pepsie.
"No comment."
"Hah! Another nondenial. Further evidence of conspirators."
"Get stuffed."
Pepsie stormed off campus saying, "We've got to get to the local affiliate."
"Why?" her cameraman asked. "You don't have film."
"We have a Secret Service agent explicitly not denying that there was a conspiracy to assassinate the President of the United States."
"Is that a double negative?" the cameraman asked as they went looking for their cab.
"I don't care what they call it, it's news."
The cabbie was still in the idling Boston taxi down in the underground garage when they got there.
As they got in, they found him fiddling with the cab radio.
"Boy," he said. "You'd think the Secret Service would be talking over a secure channel at a time like this."
Pepsie's eyes and voice grew eager. "You can pick them up?"
"What do you think I've been doing while I've been waiting? The limes crossword?"
"Well, don't just sit there," Pepsie said, pulling a minicassette recorder from her purse. "Turn up the volume so we can all hear."
The tense, urgent voices of the Secret Service crackled over the tinny dash radio.
"They're bringing the shooter's rifle down now," a voice said.
"They sure it's a Mannlicher?"
"It says Mannlicher-Carcano on the barrel, stamped big as life" came the hushed reply.
"What's a Manhiemer-Carbano?" Pepsie wondered aloud.
"Mannlicher-Carcano," the cabbie said. "It's a piece-of-shit Italian rifle."
"How do you know?"
"Hell, everybody knows what a crummy rifle the Carcano is. Even though Oswald did pretty well by it."
"Oswald?"
"Lee Harvey Oswald. The nut who shot Kennedy."
Pepsie frowned. "I thought Sirhan Sirhan shot Kennedy."
"Sirhan shot Robert Kennedy. I'm talking about Jack."
"I wasn't born then," said Pepsie, who hated it when baby boomers flaunted the fact that she hadn't been alive during most of the sixties.
The Secret Service voices continued. "Call out the serial number. I'll radio it to the BATF's NFTC for tracing."
"What did he say?" Pepsie wanted to know.
"He said," the cabbie said patiently, "he's going to radio the Mannlicher's serial number to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The NFTC is their National Firearms Tracing Center. They can trace any gun manufactured in this country that way."
"How do you know all this stuff?"
The cabbie shrugged. "I'm a buff." He turned around in his seat. "How come you don't?"
"It's a girl thing," Pepsie retorted. "You wouldn't understand. You have testicles."
A voice crackled from the dash speaker. "Serial number C2766. Repeat, C as in Charlie, twenty-seven sixty-six."
"Holy fucking shit!" said the cabbie.
"What is it? What does that number mean?"
"It means," said the cabbie, "that the Mannlicher-Carcano that shot the President dead is the same one that killed Kennedy."
Pepsie Dobbins and her cameraman exchanged blank looks.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"It means," said the cabbie, "that this is one hell of a story and how come you're sitting here when you should be getting it on the air before the cover-up begins all over again?"
THE CABBIE PEELED out of the garage on burning rubber and sped to the local ANC affiliate.
When Pepsie Dobbins barged in the door, she filled her lungs with air and called out at the top of her voice, "Point me to the nearest hot camera and get my news director in Washington on the line."
She was greeted with a sea of stony faces.
"Well, what are you standing around for?"
The stony regards grew stonier still.
"Don't you know who I am? Pepsie Dobbins. I broke the historic news that the President was murdered. Now I'm about to blow the lid off the conspiracy behind it."
No one made a move except a guard in a booth who picked up a telephone and began dialing.
"What's wrong with you people? I know the President is dead, but you can mourn on personal time. We have the people's right to know to exploit."
"The President isn't dead," someone said in a dull monotone.
Pepsie took a single step backward. "Oh, my God," she whispered to her cameraman. "Do you think they're in on the conspiracy, too? Maybe part of the cover-up?"
"Looks that way to me," the cabbie undertoned.
Pepsie whirled. "What are you doing here?"
"I want to see how everything comes out. Besides, you don't know jack shit about the subject. I do. I've read every book on assassination I could get my hands on. I'm a walking encyclopedia. Maybe I should be put on retainer."
"Later," Pepsie said. She cleared her throat and said, "The President has been killed, and the Secret Service is trying to cover up the truth. God knows how deep this goes or how big it is."
A man stepped out into the waiting area, face tight as a drum. "The President is not dead," he said.
"We all saw it on TV."
"That was a Secret Service special agent who was killed, not the President."
"How do you know?"
"I'm the news director here and I just got it from your news director. The network is issuing a retraction and apology right about now."
"Oh, my God. They aren't mentioning my name, are they? I'm still trying to live down that last little faux pas. "
"You mean the one where you were pretending to do a live remote from the Capitol Building, except it was a color slide projected onto the wall behind you?" the cabbie asked amiably. "Or the faux pas where you did a stand-up in front of NASA headquarters and they put up a slide of Nassau in the Bahamas?"
"I was tricked into doing both of those against my better judgment," Pepsie snapped.
"Your better judgment," the news director said, "has given ANC a black eye and caused the stock market to drop one hundred sixty points in three minutes. They had to halt trading. The currency markets are in an uproar. It was looking pretty grim until Air Force One issued their official denial."
"Are we sure the President is still alive?" Pepsie demanded.
"He hasn't gone on the air yet."
"It could be part of the cover-up."
The news director accepted a cellular phone handset from a secretary, spoke into it briefly, then tossed it to Pepsie.
"Tell it to your news director. And then clear out of my building."
"Greg? I can explain," Pepsie said into the handset.
But Greg wasn't in the mood for hearing explanations. He swore a continuous blue streak until Pepsie stopped wincing and just hung her head in shame.
When he was through with his tirade, Pepsie said, "I think I can redeem us a little. Maybe."
"How?"
"I have hard evidence that the rifle used to shoot the President-I mean the Secret Service agent-is the same one that killed Kennedy. Jack, not Robert."
"Don't screw with me, Pepsie. You're on thin ice as it is."
"It's true. I have it on tape. Listen."
Pepsie rewound her minicassette and played snatches of the Secret Service radio exchange into the cellular handset.
"Who's that explaining everything to you?" the news director asked.
"My cab driver."
"You're depending on the memory of a fucking cab driver for your fact checking?" the news director roared.
"I resent that remark," the cabbie said. "I happen to be an amateur conspiratologist. "
"Look," Pepsie said, clapping a hand over her free ear, "if it's the same rifle, this could be big. We've got to go on the air with it."
"I'm going on the air with nothing! You get your ass back to Washington, and we'll sort it out later. In the meantime, I have an unscheduled appointment in the network president's woodshed. And you have one in mine. "
The phone went click in Pepsie's ear.
"Take me to the airport," Pepsie told the cabbie dispiritedly. "And don't be in such a rush."
On the way out, the cabbie was saying, "I don't suppose I could talk you into letting me accompany you to D.C.? I got a lot to offer and I'm sick of contending with these maniac Boston drivers ...."
Chapter 10
The airline reservations agent was unapologetic.
"We have no adjoining seats in coach and none in first class at all."
"But I'm Pepsie Dobbins. Bump someone."
The agent remained unmoved. "The flight has boarded. Would you prefer to wait for the next flight."
"I'd love to," Pepsie muttered. "But I have to be in Washington."
"Do you have a preference-12-A or 31-E?"
"Just give them both to me," Pepsie said. "Since when does the ANC News Washington correspondents get so little respect?" she fumed.
"Since she screwed up royally," suggested the cabbie.
"You watch your mouth. You're along for the ride only as long as you pull your own weight."
"Happy to oblige," said the cabbie, accepting his boarding pass from Pepsie.
"What about me?" asked the ANC News cameraman, who stood a little off to one side, his hands dangling uncomfortably as if he didn't know what to do with them when not packing around the chief tool of his trade.
"Walk," said Pepsie. "And next time hold on to your camera."
ON BOARD, Pepsie found a little mummy of an Asian man sitting in 12-A. A lavender kimono covered his pipe-stem body. He was as bald as an egg except for some snowy cloud puffs over each ear. A wisp of smoke too vaporous to be called a true beard hung off his wrinkled chin. He stared out the window with narrow eyes that were hazel in the reflected glass.
Pepsie bent over and asked, "Would you mind trading seats with my friend?"
"Yes, I would mind," said the old Asian in a squeaky voice. He did not look away from the window.
"But I need to sit with my friend."
"Then sit on his lap. Just do not bother me."
"But I'm Pepsie Dobbins."
"And I am the Master of Sinanju."
Pepsie blinked. "I guess he won't budge," she told the cabbie.
"You are very astute," said the Master of Sinanju. "For a mere female."
After the Please Fasten Seat Belts light was doused, Pepsie turned to the old Asian and complained, "It wouldn't have hurt you to be nice to me."
"I do not see you being nice to me."
"But I'm an important network correspondent."
The face of the old Asian gathered its wrinkles together like parchment taking on water. "Pah! I am even more important than you."
"How so?"
"I am the resolute guardian of the throne of America."
"That's nice," said Pepsie in a thin voice, instantly dismissing the old man as senile.
The old Asian lapsed into silence.
"Of course," the old man added after a long pause, "it is a state secret."
Not looking up from her copy of People, Pepsie murmured, "What is?"
"The fact that I serve the true ruler of America in a secret capacity. Do not tell anyone."
"I won't."
"It is a thankless task."
"I'm sure it is."
"Especially thankless since I am reduced to protecting the puppet President and not Emperor Smith."
Pepsie shook off her disinterest. "Puppet President?"
"He is a sham. Though few know it."
"I'm sure," Pepsie said vaguely.
"Your entire government is a sham. A sham and a farce."
"But never dull."
"But this is what an assassin is reduced to in these odious times."
"Excuse me. Did you say 'assassin'?"
The old Asian placed a thin finger like a yellowed mummy bone to his papery lips. "Secret assassin."
"You're an assassin?"
"Secret."
"This is very interesting," said Pepsie, surreptitiously reaching into her purse and squeezing the Record button on her minicassette recorder.
"Of course, I cannot speak about it. Tongues would wag-"
"They always do. But just between you and I, you didn't have anything to do with what happened here today?"
"The disgrace?"
"Yeah. The disgrace."
"It was a base act. To use a boom stick and strike down a member of the palace guard and not the proper target."
"You think it's bad they got the wrong guy?"
Target of Opportunity td-98 Page 8