I drove in to the city and parked in one of the garages in the Loop. The weather was turning cooler. Chicago was the Windy City, so the temperature was lower than in New York.
Millennium Park was packed with people no matter what time of day. They expected a few thousand people at Linder’s rally tomorrow. Police had already put up those wooden sawhorse blockades around the area for crowd control. Volunteers were at work putting up banners and signs. The pavilion was a beehive.
Time to get to work.
Planning an operation usually consisted of three things.
One, research. You had to get to know your target. I’d studied everything I could about Linder. I knew she was married and had two teenage boys. I knew she was smart and employed even smarter people to be around her. She’d be well protected.
Two, know the scene. If possible, you had to visit the place where the hit was going to take place. That’s what I was doing today. I wanted to get a sense of the light during the day, the location of various man-made and natural obstacles, and the possible escape routes. Where were the danger spots? What was the safest spot from which to operate?
Three, plan the hit. I had to know what weapon I was going to use and how I’d use it. Ideally, it was always good to make a kill appear as if it were accidental. This time, however, the client wanted a public assassination. Why, I didn’t know. I didn’t care. A job was a job. If the client was really the U.S. government, as the Agency suspected, then killing a politician in front of TV cameras seemed very odd to me. You’d think they’d want to do it surreptitiously, make it look like an accident. I was supplied the M40A3 sniper rifle by the client. It was a fine weapon. I’d test it tonight. The ammunition looked sound. I was supposed to leave the rifle behind after the kill. Maybe it could be traced to someone else. Maybe they were trying to frame another killer, which could be done by identifying the serial number. Fine with me; I’d be long gone before the police realized what had happened.
I did sometimes get special requests from a client. For example, I’ve had to show the client’s photograph to the target right before he died. So he’d know who ordered the hit. His last dying thought. Made sense. It was some kind of justice for the client. There was no right or wrong when it came to what I did for a living, no matter who was doing it. I couldn’t feel bad for Dana Linder. Sure, her family would be upset. Her death would make international news. I didn’t know if she was a good person or a bad person. I didn’t care. I suppose in some way it helped me when I knew the target was a bad person, but it usually didn’t make much difference to me.
I just did the job as professionally and perfectly as I could.
For the next hour, I walked around the park and found the best spot from which to shoot Dana Linder. The rifle had a range of a thousand yards. That was plenty. The big, curvy silver-steel bridge at the southeastern edge of the park was promising. I spent a half hour pacing the distance from the highest point of the bridge to the stage. I then checked my calculation with a handheld laser the size of a pen. My pacing was off by only three yards. It would do. The items I picked up at Cherry’s place would also play big parts in the undertaking. I found a suitable container for one of them in the middle of the expansive lawn in front of the pavilion. I examined the sky and noted the cloud formations. I’m pretty good at predicting the weather. At any rate, I’d monitor the local meteorologists’ reports. It was definitely windy that close to Lake Michigan, so I would have to adjust my aim. There were flagpoles on the west side of the park. The flags would give me a good indication of wind velocity before I took the shot. Perfect.
Knowing my escape route in detail had saved me several times; it was often the key to making the hit appear to be magic. So I spent another hour walking the streets around the park. Although it was getting colder, I took the time to mentally map out the best spots for cover. If a firefight broke out, I needed to know what offered adequate protection—for me or an opponent. I knew I could rely on being faster and more precise than a normal person, but nothing really beat being smart and planning ahead.
There was one more thing to do—I just had to pick up a couple of items I’d need. That included a disguise.
As I left the park, a double-decker bus drove by on Michigan Avenue. It was full of tourists, both on the top level and inside. They waved at people on the street. For a second, I could swear I saw that shadowy figure sitting up top. Death. Faceless and cold. Looking right at me.
I felt that edge of anxiety again, and I realized I hadn’t taken a painkiller in a while. Was I hallucinating? Possibly.
The moment passed and the bus was gone.
I could quit those pills anytime. I knew I could.
I just didn’t want to. Not right now.
ELEVEN
Police estimated that nine thousand people attended the noon rally for Dana Linder in Chicago’s Millennium Park. Located between Michigan Avenue and Columbus Drive and sitting just north of the famed Art Institute, the park was the city’s star attraction.
Architect Frank Gehry’s Jay Pritzker Pavilion was the focal point. Linder was due to deliver her campaign speech from its stage. The 120-foot-high pavilion sported an unusual flowerlike, billowing crown made of brushed stainless-steel ribbons that framed the stage’s proscenium arch, all connecting to an overhead trellis of crisscrossing steel pipes that extended over the four thousand fixed seats. The Great Lawn, which faced the stage, could hold another seven thousand people. For the rally, two giant TV screens were erected on either side of the proscenium so that the audience could get up close and personal with Dana Linder.
Another Gehry creation, the 925-foot BP Bridge, spanned Columbus Drive by connecting the park with Daley Bicentennial Plaza, situated east of the park and bordering Lake Michigan. The long, winding bridge, adorned with brushed stainless-steel panels, complemented the pavilion in function as well as design by creating an acoustic barrier from the traffic noise below. The structure was used by walkers and runners alike. From atop the bridge, pedestrians could view the impressive Chicago skyline and overlook the entire park. The bridge was crowded, of course, not only with the usual patrons who used the structure for exercise but also with rally attendees.
From the bridge’s southern tip, one had an excellent view of the pavilion stage, albeit from some distance.
It was close enough, though.
Political rallies could be peaceful events that were pulled off without a hitch. On the other hand, they might be tinderboxes ignited by an inadvertent, unanticipated spark. When a gathering of that size assembled in the city, it was best to have a strong police presence; thus, the men and women in blue were out in droves. Most of them were on the lawn and around the pavilion, but one officer stood on the bridge’s apex, his eyes on the multitude to the south. Another three patrolmen were positioned at the southern end, where the bridge emptied onto the lawn. Their backs were to the bridge as they also faced the throng.
The woman pushing the baby stroller onto the BP Bridge from the Daley Plaza side was tall and thin, but not so much that she attracted undue attention. She wore a gray and blue pantsuit that was otherwise nondescript. A full head of gray hair topped by a Chicago Cubs baseball cap and the pair of sunglasses hid her facial features well enough from anyone who happened to afford her a second glance. Otherwise, she appeared to be a grandmother out for a stroll with her grandchild on a beautiful early October day.
At the highest point of the curving bridge, the woman surveyed the park and the mass of humanity that spread across the Great Lawn. All eyes were focused on the pavilion stage, where the festivities had begun with a local high school band performing patriotic tunes such as “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Stars and Stripes Forever” as a prelude to the presidential candidate’s appearance.
When the music finished, the woman bent over the stroller, cooed, and held a bottle of formula to the bundle inside. No one paid any attention to her.
One of the America First Party’s House representatives
from Illinois took the stage and warmed up the audience. He spoke about national values and their importance in the grand scheme of democracy. He pointed out various goals of the party. And then he announced a surprise satellite telecast from someone the people all knew and loved.
Charlie Wilkins.
The woman with the baby stroller finished feeding the bottle to the package of joy inside the carriage, stood, and focused her attention on the big TV screens.
The crowd cheered exuberantly when Wilkins’s face appeared.
“Greetings to you all!” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t be there in person to join my good friend Dana in Chicago. But I want you to know she has my endorsement, my support, and my love! I’ve known Dana since she was a child. She and her brother, Darren, God bless his soul, were parishioners under my tutelage and guidance back in Maryland when the Church of Will was just a fledgling organization. I knew then as I know now that Dana has the brains and the leadership qualities to take this great nation back to its former glory. With Dana Linder at the top, I assure you the United States will be number one again. So let me now get out of your face, ’cause that’s enough of me. Allow me to introduce the person who will lead the people of America to meet the values and goals of the America First Party—Senator Dana Shipley Linder!”
The horde erupted with noise. If there was any doubt that the candidate had support, that notion quickly dissipated. Even the boos and catcalls from a group of Democrats and a bunch of Republicans who had staked out separate territories on the Great Lawn were drowned out and rendered ineffective.
Wilkins’s broadcast disappeared from the TV screens as Dana Linder took the stage. She was dressed in a smart business suit of muted colors. Her face took over the giant monitors and beamed at the multitude. It took a full minute for the audience to quiet down and let her speak. Her voice echoed through the park with exuberance.
“My fellow Americans!”
More cheers.
“And good afternoon, Chicago!”
Even bigger shouts.
“You aren’t sports fans, are you?”
The crowd went wild.
“Well, how about this for sport? Come this November fourth, the people will put an America First Party candidate in the White House!”
Tumultuous rejoicing.
Linder continued with a carefully prepared, pep-rallying speech designed to incite enthusiasm and excitement among her listeners.
The woman with the stroller looked around the bridge and confirmed that all eyes were on the pavilion stage.
The moment had come. It was when time slowed down and every thought, every action, seemed to last an eternity, and yet only a partial second elapsed with each effort.
The woman noted the flags waving on the poles and determined wind velocity and direction. Perfect.
The noise of Linder speaking ceased. The sound of the air became a vacuum.
As she’d rehearsed faultlessly, the woman reached into the carriage and picked up a cellphone. She quickly dialed a number and dropped the mobile back inside. An instant later, surprisingly loud, popping explosions went off in a trash barrel in the middle of the park. The crowd around it screamed in fright, reacting to the sudden clamor. This diverted everyone’s attention, including Linder’s.
The woman on the bridge swung the weapon to position, resting the barrel on top of the carriage in lieu of a tripod base. She bent her knees slightly and aimed. Even through the sunglasses, she got a clear bead on Linder through the Schmidt & Bender telescopic sight.
Linder’s forehead appeared in the crosshairs. Her mouth was opening and closing, uttering silent words blocked by the sniper’s sensitive discipline.
The woman’s index finger touched the trigger. All it would take was a simple squeeze. She took a split second to breathe, and then she instinctively and efficiently applied the appropriate amount of pressure.
The shot rang out over the bridge.
Without looking to see if the target was hit—the woman knew she was—she reached into her pocket and removed the smoke grenade obtained from Cherry Jones’s arsenal. The woman pulled the pin and tossed it a few feet away from the baby carriage. With a loud, thudding boom, a thick cloud of violet-colored smoke immediately filled that section of the BP Bridge. Pedestrians screamed.
Time resumed its normal pace.
Visibility was reduced to zero. Then came the vocal reactions from the crowd near the stage. Something had happened. Something bad.
Police whistles. Shouts. Pandemonium.
It took several minutes for the smoke to thin. By then, a large host of onlookers had congregated at the foot of the bridge as uniformed officers desperately tried to keep them back. They all shouted at once:
“Someone shot Dana!”
“The killer was on the bridge!”
“It was a woman!”
“Where’d she go?”
“What happened?”
With handgun drawn, one officer cautiously approached the stroller, which still stood where the woman had abandoned it. He looked inside and found no infant—just an M40A3 sniper rifle, a gray wig, a baseball cap, and a gray and blue woman’s pantsuit that had literally been ripped off a body.
Agent 47, naturally bald-headed and now wearing his black suit—revealed after tearing away the woman’s clothing—stood among the agitated crowd, participating in the shouting and clamor. He was just another one of the herd, deftly blending in with the chaos around him.
As the police joined arms to force the crowd off the bridge, 47 slipped farther south and onto the Great Lawn. The audience was straining to see the stage and yearning for news of what had happened. The assassin slowly moved through them as he also pretended to be a concerned supporter. The TV screens by the stage had gone blank, and a group of campaign workers and police were huddled around the fallen body of Dana Linder.
It took nearly twenty minutes for 47 to make his way to the south side of the lawn. He spied the trash barrel that police were now inspecting. The fireworks the hitman had procured from Cherry had done the trick once he had hooked up a firing cap with a cellphone detonator. They had supplied the appropriate amount of diversion. Pleased with himself, 47 moved on to AT&T Plaza, which contained the famed Cloud Gate stainless-steel sculpture—commonly called by its nickname, the “bean.” As Agent 47 looked up into its silver surface and adjusted his tie, he saw a distorted, funhouse-like reflection of the mayhem going on behind him in the park.
He then calmly walked past the McCormick Tribune Plaza and Ice Rink, which was not yet open for the winter, and onto the sidewalk of Michigan Avenue. From there, he went to the Art Institute and spent the next two hours admiring the world-class exhibits and killing time, seemingly oblivious to the horror that had occurred in the park that day.
He’d catch it on the evening news.
TWELVE
Helen McAdams sat alone in her office in the Greenhill mansion, just down a long hall and around the corner from Charlie Wilkins’s private space. She knew the boss was extremely upset, as was everyone in the compound. Dana Linder had been like a daughter to Wilkins. Helen felt terrible for the man.
The killing had profoundly affected every member of the Church of Will. A gloomy pall had settled on the compound in Virginia. It didn’t help that October brought continuous rain, as heavy black clouds stubbornly hovered over Aquia Lake.
Worldwide reaction was one of shock and disbelief. In the three days since the incident in Chicago, conspiracy theories and rumors dominated the Internet, newspapers, and television talk shows. The killer, of course, was not caught, and she—or he—left little behind in the way of clues. There were no fingerprints or telltale evidence on the baby stroller. The clothing and wig were useless—they could have been purchased at any Target or Walmart in the country. The only significant finding was that the M40A3 rifle at the scene was registered to a soldier stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, although he had reported, and the military confirmed, that the weapon was stolen a month
earlier. This development ignited the most popular conspiracy theory—that the current administration was somehow responsible. The president ordered it. The CIA executed it. Plenty of people believed that the government was so afraid of the America First Party that they had utilized the last resort to win the election. The White House categorically denied any involvement in Dana Linder’s death.
Police and FBI investigators had no leads. Witness testimonies were wildly contradictory. A majority claimed that the shooter was a woman who vanished in a cloud of smoke. Cooler heads suggested that the assassin was a man disguised as a woman. Surveillance videos caught the killer in action, but analysts were still not certain of the gender. After the smoke grenade detonated, all bets were off. The huge crowd of people that swarmed the bridge made it impossible for face-recognition software to do its job. The murderer had indeed disappeared into thin air.
Helen sighed forlornly as she read yet another incendiary blog on her computer. It had been an emotional day. That morning, Wilkins had presided over a memorial service in the Greenhill sanctuary. Dignitaries from all over the country, including President Burdett, had attended. A poignant but loaded moment occurred when the president expressed his deepest sympathy to Linder’s husband and teenage boys, who were devastated with grief. Television cameras were not allowed inside. After the service, the VIPs rushed away from the site, the family went home to Maryland, and Wilkins blockaded himself in his office to pray and reflect on the terrible occurrence.
Usually, Helen was very busy when she was at work, but today there was nothing to do. She thought about leaving the mansion and going back to her apartment. During the sermon, Wilkins had told Church members they didn’t have to work and could go home to grieve if they wished, but Helen wouldn’t budge from her desk. She wanted to be there if Charlie needed her.
As if Wilkins had read her thoughts, the intercom buzzed. Helen pressed the button and asked, “Yes, sir?”
Raymond Benson Page 8