Target of Opportunity td-98

by Warren Murphy

  The President frowned.

  "Bad choice of words. You know what I mean, emulators. There is always someone who thinks there's glory in finishing a job another guy blew."

  "I know," the President said somberly.

  "I would like to recommend that you keep a low profile over the next week. At least a week."

  "I have universal health care to push."

  At that moment the First Lady came rushing in without bothering to knock.

  "This just came off the net," she said breathlessly.

  The printout was slapped on the desk. The President looked at it briefly.

  He handed it back to the First Lady and said, "See to it. Tonight."

  "What good will renting an old Jimmy Stewart movie do?" the First Lady asked testily.

  "Trust me on this one."

  The director of the Secret Service looked interested. "Is there something here I should be apprised of?" he asked politely.

  "No!" the President and the First Lady said with equal vehemence.

  The director looked at them both. As the First Lady marched from the Oval Office, he leaned forward and said, "Mr. President, if I am to do my job, I need to know that I have your full confidence."

  "You do. Your agents do not. I want the White House detail rotated out. Everyone except Capezzi. He saved my life."

  The director swallowed hard. "Yes, sir."

  "And I want the incoming detail agents closely watched."

  "By whom?"

  "Other agents. Work it out. I want no more incidents like this afternoon. It's bad enough the nation thinks its President has been blown away by some crazy. But if it gets out the Secret Service almost did him in, it will sound to the world as if there's a coup brewing."

  "Don't even say that word," the director said fervently as he stood up to go.

  Chapter 16

  "How was your flight?" asked Remo when the Master of Sinanju stepped from the gate at Washington National.

  "The wing did not fall off," said Chiun, his face a composed web of deep seams.

  "A lucky streak like that can't go on forever."

  "It has not. I was forced to sit near a very rude and unimportant woman."

  "Tough. All the way down I had to hear about how evil assassins are."

  "Ignorance blights this land like no other," said Chiun, walking along with his hands tucked safely into the sleeves of his kimono. "I understand the puppet lives."

  "Yeah. But he's not out of the woods yet." Eyeing the lavender silk, Remo said, "I hope you came with a few spare kimonos."

  "You never hope that."

  "Normally. But Smith is coming down. And he specifically asked that we avoid attracting attention."

  "It would be better if enemies knew that the House of Sinanju had come to protect him."

  "We can protect him in a quieter kimono than lavender."

  When they reached the baggage carousel, the Master of Sinanju undertoned, "There is the rude one."

  Remo stared. "Isn't that Pepsie Dobbins?"

  "I did not ask her unimportant name," sniffed Chiun.

  "Yeah, that's her."

  "She demanded my seat, claiming she was more important that me."

  "Not since she blew the report on the President, from what I hear. People want to see her strung up."

  "I have put her in her place, do not fear."

  "Good," said Remo, watching luggage start to drop down the chute.

  "I have told her that I work for Emperor Smith and not the puppet President," added Chiun.

  "That's good," said Remo, starting forward when he saw the first of a possible fourteen lacquered steamer trunks come sliding down. Remo caught himself in midstride.

  "Wait a minute! What did you say?"

  "What I have just told you," said Chiun.

  "You didn't?"

  "I did."

  "She's a freaking reporter."

  "She is a freaking fool intoxicated on the smell of her own vanity. Now, do not let my trunk be stolen by cretins."

  Because the risk to the trunks was real, Remo started pulling them off the belt as soon as they came by.

  "Only three?" he asked when the conveyor belt finally stopped.

  "I was in a hurry," said Chiun.

  Remo looked up. There was no sign of Pepsie Dobbins.

  But as he carried the three trunks out of the airport, Remo spotted her at a cab stand. Unfortunately Pepsie spotted him, too.

  She came up saying, "We meet again."

  "I do not know you," said Chiun disdainfully.

  Pepsie ignored the Master of Sinanju. "Who are you?" she asked Remo.

  Noticing one hand stuffed in her big purse, Remo said, "Remo Wayne Bobbitt."

  Pepsie made a notch with her eyebrows. "I know that name."

  "I'm famous for my detached personality," said Remo. "It gets me on all the talk shows."

  Pepsie indicated Chiun. "Are you with him?"

  "What's it to you?"

  "He tells the most interesting stories."

  "He has A-L-Z-H-I-M-E-R-S," said Remo, spelling out the word. When Pepsie seemed slow getting it, he added. "You know, S-E-N-I-L-E."

  "You left out the e, P-E-N-I-L-E one," sniffed Chiun.

  Both Remo and Pepsie looked blank, and the Master of Sinanju cackled softly to himself.

  Pepsie said. "Want to share a ride to-"

  "The White House," said Chiun.

  "Pay no attention to him," Remo said hastily. "We are not going to the White House."

  "It is where we are headed," said Chiun.

  "We're going to our hotel," insisted Remo, eyeing Pepsie.

  "Which hotel is that?" asked Pepsie.

  "Are you always this nosy?" asked Remo.

  "I'm not nosy. I'm just trying to save a few dollars. Maybe we can split a cab."

  "You can have both halves of my cab," said Remo, setting down the three steamer trunks and folding his arms stubbornly.

  "What are you doing, Remo?" asked Chiun.

  "Waiting for a cab I like."

  Chiun gestured to the waiting line. "I see many cabs."

  "I don't see one in a color I like," Remo said flatly, staring Pepsie Bobbins full in the eye.

  "What color are you looking for?" Pepsie wanted to know.

  "One that doesn't clash with your hair," said Remo, turning his back on her.

  After ten more minutes of fruitless conversation, Pepsie Bobbins got the message and threw her traveling bag into the trunk of a cab and said, "ANC Studios."

  A man Remo mistook for a cabbie on break followed her into the cab and said to the driver, "And take the direct route. I know how you guys rob unwary tourists like us."

  After the cab had departed, Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju and said, "Nice move. Smith said to play it cool, and you practically tell the press about the organization."

  "No one would believe a woman who claims to be in one place while actually standing in another."

  The next cab in line slid up.

  "I thought you didn't recognize her," said Remo, opening the door.

  "I did not want her to know that," said the Master of Sinanju as he slipped into the rear of the cab.

  DURING THE CAB RIDE to the studio, Pepsie Dobbins popped a fresh tape into her cassette deck and said, "I've been dying to do this. Give me a crash course in assassinology."

  She clicked on the recorder and held it up to the cab driver's face. The driver in the back of the cab, not the one driving.

  "First," he said, "everything you know about this stuff is wrong. Oswald didn't shoot Kennedy, and Sirhan didn't shoot the other Kennedy."

  "Were they part of the same conspiracy?"

  "That part nobody's figured out yet. But don't let me get ahead of myself here."

  "You should give me your name for the record."

  "I was wondering when you'd get around to that. For a hotshot reporter, you're kinda sloppy on the details."

  "Your name, please," Pepsie requested ar
idly.

  "Aloycius X. Featherstone."

  "I hope you have a nickname."

  "People call me Buck. On account I like to turn one now and again."

  "Keep talking, Buck."

  "Like I was saying, nobody you think shot anybody, actually did. It's all cover-ups. Nothing that got out so far is the truth, so help me God. Ray didn't kill King."

  "Slow down. Who's Ray and who's King?"

  "James Earl Ray and Martin Luther King."

  Pepsie frowned. "Why does everybody have three names?"

  "That's another good point. Three-name guys are very big in this business. Don't ask me why. But whenever you come across a three-name guy, he's usually the killer or the victim."

  "You just said that Oswald didn't kill Kennedy. He's a three-name guy."

  "It wasn't Oswald. It was Alek James Hidell. That was his real name. Oswald was what he always said he was-a patsy."

  "Is there a beginning we can start at?"

  "You should see that movie."

  "What movie?"

  "What one about Oswald and Kennedy that Hardy Bricker directed, CIA. It lays it all out, except the answers."

  "Then what good is it?" Pepsie responded.

  "You gotta know the right questions to ask, or the answers you're gonna get won't be worth squat. That was the problem with the Warren Commission Report. Those stiffs asked the wrong questions and they got answers that to this day are no good."

  "I should read a copy of the Warren Report, shouldn't I?"

  "Maybe we can find one in one of those government bookstores."

  "Good idea." Pepsie leaned forward. "Driver, find me a bookstore that carries the Warren Report."

  "They don't carry it in bookstores," the driver called over the honking of Washington traffic. "You're better off trying the library."

  "How would you know?" Buck asked the cab driver.

  The cabbie shrugged and said, "I'm a buff. And that guy is handing you a load of crap, lady. Oswald shot Kennedy, all right. On orders from the mob."

  Buck shook his head vehemently. "No. It was a CIA operation all the way."

  "The mob. The Chicago mob. It was Carlos Marcello and those guys. They had the means, motive and opportunity. They were after Robert Kennedy, who was busting their balls all over the place. They didn't care about Jack. They figured if Jack was croaked, Lyndon would shitcan Bobby. End of problem. If they whacked Bobby, Jack would be in a position to nail them to the fucking wall. Which I can assure you, they did not want."

  "Crap," said Aloycius X. "Buck" Featherstone.

  "It worked, didn't it? And Hoffa was in on it, too."

  "Who's Hoffa?" asked Pepsie, jerking her recorder from the front seat to the back in an effort to vacuum up every loose theory.

  "Some smart-ass Teamster boss," muttered Buck. "They never found his body. It don't mean nothing."

  "If you're saying the CIA whacked Jack to keep him from pulling out of Vietnam, you're full of it," the cab driver insisted. "There was no guarantee Lyndon wouldn't have done the same thing once his fat can was in the seat."

  "But he didn't. That's proof positive!"

  "One sec," interrupted Pepsie. "Who did Lyndon shoot?"

  "Himself," grunted Buck. "In the foot. He was the President after Jack. Got hounded out of office."

  "Why does that keep happening?" Pepsie asked plaintively. "Why do our Presidents keep getting hounded out of office?"

  "The press," both cab drivers said at once.

  "When I want editorializing, I'll ask for it," Pepsie snapped. "Now, let's get back to hard theory."

  "First we gotta get you that Warren Report," said Buck.

  PEPSIE FOUND A SET in the Washington Public Library.

  "This is the Warren Report?" she asked, staring at a long shelf of dusty leather-bound volumes.

  "That's it."

  "It must be very popular. They have so many copies. An entire shelf full."

  "That's the full set," said Buck. "All twenty-six volumes."

  Pepsie's already unnaturally wide eyes became saucers. "This is all one book?"

  "Yep."

  "I can't read all this! What do you think I am-a print journalist?"

  "I read it all."

  "And I have a life to lead, and this is only one story."

  "If what we overheard is true, this isn't just a story. It's the story. Maybe the story of the twentieth century. If Oswald or Hidell is still alive and he's trying to take out the President, that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt there was a conspiracy. And we're in the perfect position to blow it wide open. You and I could be the next Woodward and Bernstein."

  Pepsie rubbed book dust off her immaculate fingers. "I heard about them. I think my news director plays golf with one of them or something."

  "They're the guys who cracked Watergate wide open, which was nothing compared to this."

  "Come on. Let's put this to my news director."

  WHEN PEPSIE DOBBINS entered the ANC News building, no one said hello.

  "Looks like they're giving you the cold shoulder," undertoned Buck.

  "They're probably still upset over the assassination attempt. It would unnerve anyone. And a lot of these people actually vote."

  The news director of ANC News's Washington bureau accosted Pepsie in the corridor, biting out his words between clenched teeth, saying, "In my office."

  "Wait outside," Pepsie told Buck.

  In the office Pepsie Dobbins said, "I have evidence of a conspiracy to assassinate the President."

  "By Lee Harvey Oswald?" the news director said dryly.

  "Well, his name might be Alek James Hidell. We're not sure."

  "We?"

  "My assassinologist and I."

  "My proctologist!"

  "Huh?"

  "That's a nice way of saying my ass. Now, do you have any reasonable explanation before I consign you to whatever local news organization will have you?"

  "You can't fire the reporter who's sitting on the biggest story of the century."

  "You have nothing."

  "Listen to this tape."

  Pepsie produced her cassette recorder and rewound it.

  A squeaky voice began speaking when she depressed the Play button.

  "Smith has ignored all my entreaties to snuff out the puppet and set him on the Eagle Throne."

  Pepsie's recorded voice asked, "You want the President dead?"

  "It will bring stability-"

  "Who's that speaking?" the ANC news director asked.

  "He said his name was Chiun. I met him on the plane. He told me the President's a puppet and America is under the control of a man named Smith."

  "A man you met on a plane?" the news director said.

  "Yes."

  "And a man named Smith controls everything?"

  "Yes!"

  "And I'm supposed to let you run amok with this story?"

  "Look, I know I'm right about this. You can't turn away the next Steinway."

  "Who?"

  "The guy you play golf with." Pepsie snapped her fingers anxiously. "You know. He broke the old Whitewash story. Floodgate, or whatever they called it."

  "You mean Bernstein?"

  "Whatever, I'm him. The next him. Some day you could be playing golf with me. "

  "No sale, Pepsie. The network president told me I could keep my job as long as you lost yours."

  "I'm telling you a man named Smith is important to this story."

  "Do you realize how many Smiths there are in the world?"

  At that point a news writer poked his head in the door and said, "We just noticed something funny about the President when he went jogging."

  "Can't it wait? I'm trying to fire somebody here."

  The news writer noticed Pepsie for the first time. "Oh! Hi, Pepsie. Good luck in your next job."

  "Hi," Pepsie said disconsolately.

  "What is it?"

  "The President was wearing a cap that said Eat Granny Smith Apples," the news wr
iter said.

  The news director pointed to Pepsie and roared, "Have you been drinking from the same water cooler as this one?"

  "And his T-shirt said Smith College."

  The news director looked strange for a moment.

  "That's a woman's college, isn't it?"

  "I went there," Pepsie volunteered helpfully. "I never saw any guys. Unless you count dykes."

  "Why would the President wear a Smith College shirt?"

  Pepsie started jumping an place. "Smith! Smith! Don't you get it? It has something to do with the Smith I told you about."

  "Who's Smith?" the news writer asked curiously.

  "Play down that story and get out of my office," the news director roared.

  The door slammed.

  The news director said slowly, "Pepsie, I know I'm going to regret this, but here's the deal. You're fired. Officially."

  "Dam."

  "Unofficially if you want to follow this cockeyed story of yours, go to it. But I didn't authorize it. I don't know anything about it. And I don't want to hear about it unless you come up with something solid. If you do, and this is as big as it sounds, even the network president will welcome you back with open arms."

  "Guarantee me no other reporter gets to run with the Oswald angle, and it's a deal."

  "Believe me, that's between you and me. And I'm forgetting it the minute you've left the building."

  "I'll need a Minicam," said Pepsie.

  "I'll have one messengered to your apartment. But no cameraman."

  "No problem. I'll have my assassinologist carry it. All you have to do is know where to point it. It'll be just like driving a cab."

  The news director opened the door invitingly. "Goodbye, Pepsie. Unless you pull off a miracle."

  "Don't think I won't."

  Chapter 17

  Remo and Chiun were seated on the rug of their Watergate hotel room, eating take-out rice from cardboard containers and talking. Chiun's steamer trunks were stacked on the big bed.

  Remo was saying, "I don't want to be an assassin anymore, Little Father."

  Chiun's voice grew thin. "Why is this?"

  " 'Assassin' is a bad word in this country."

  "This is a country where vast sums of money are showered upon a starved blond singer who cannot sing simply because she makes a public spectacle of herself. It is no wonder."

  "I would have paid Medusa not to publish that book of naked pictures of herself," Remo admitted.

  "You are an assassin," said Chiun. "It is not only what you do, if clumsily, but what you are. You can no more not be an assassin than you can cease to breathe correctly."