The Second Shooter (26 page)

"The people running this operation," Blackstone said, "the ones who asked you to review the plan, did they ask for your recommendation?"

"They did."

"And?"

"I said it was a bad idea. A terrible idea, actually."

"Then why are they going through with it?"

"Because just like last time," Garcia said, "my vote didn't count."

***

Fluker found the building with less trouble than he thought. Turned out, it was the tall one. As he stood on the sidewalk and craned his neck to glance up at the top of the high-rise, the sight of the fast-moving clouds scuttling past the glass-and-chrome monolith made him dizzy.

He looked down at his watch, mainly as a stationary focal point, something to get his head straight. It took several seconds, maybe half a minute, but it worked. The dizziness faded, then disappeared. He also noted that it was 8:45 a.m.

Fluker circled around to the back of the building and walked up a set of concrete steps to the loading dock. The big bay door was closed. They probably keep it closed for security, Fluker thought, unless there was a delivery coming. Next to the bay door was a standard-sized steel door. It too was closed. And probably locked, Fluker expected. But out of habit, he tugged on it and was surprised when it opened. He peeked in but didn't see anyone. "Hello," he called out. "George?"

Nothing.

He stepped inside. The door was on some kind of spring and pulled closed behind him. He was in a huge room that seemed to be used for storage and maybe maintenance. Wire cages ran along one wall and locked inside them was a lot of equipment. Most of it Fluker didn't recognize. He'd never been that handy. He had a knack for taking certain things apart and putting them back together, an M-60 machine gun or a Chevy small-block 305, but he wasn't so good using tools to build things from scratch. Which, he thought, probably explained why he worked where he did. Some of the equipment locked up behind the cage doors he did recognize and knew how to operate. There was an industrial carpet cleaner and a floor buffer, plus weed trimmers and a riding lawnmower. Stuff he'd used in Basic Training in the Army.

What he didn't see was George. His friend was supposed to meet him here. But maybe because Fluker was late with all of that traffic, having to walk the last mile, George had already left. George was a busy man. He didn't have time to wait around.

Fluker stepped farther into the cavernous room. No one seemed to be around. He took a few more steps. Then he saw a beat-up plastic case, five feet long and two feet wide, leaning upright against the wall. A folded piece of paper taped to the front of the case had his name handwritten on it in big black letters: 'RAY FLUKER'.

He walked to the case. Then glanced around again. Well, it had his name on it. No mistaking that. The tape was stretched across the seam of the folded piece of paper. He unfolded the paper without removing it. The note, written in the same hand and with the same black marker as his name, read:

Ray,

Washer and dryer delivered. Got them upstairs by myself, but threw my damn back out. Still need your help, pal. Can you bring up this heavy case?

—George

Fluker smiled at the note. George had mentioned something to him once about having a bad back. From football, was it? No, maybe he said soccer. Or lacrosse. Rowing. Some fancy sport. You should have waited on me, pal. I would have helped you haul them up. That's what friends do. They help each other.

Fluker pulled the note off the plastic case, folded it carefully, and slipped it into his pocket. He was going to save it. Then he tilted the oblong case away from the wall. Giving it a test lift, he realized it wasn't that heavy, maybe thirty-five, forty pounds. It was more awkward than heavy. He bent a little and hefted it onto his shoulder. Now what?

He scanned the big room, feeling more like he belonged here, helping a friend who lived in the building. If anybody asked, he had a legitimate note in his pocket.

There was a service elevator in the back. Fluker lugged the case into the elevator and punched the button for George's floor. The metal door slid shut and the elevator rattled as it lumbered upward. It was going to be a long ride, so Fluker set the box down easy. Up in the top corner of the elevator car to his right, he saw a tiny security camera. He nodded into the lens, hoping he looked like he belonged here enough so that whoever was monitoring the camera wouldn't activate some sort of intercom and ask him a bunch of questions. Or worse, an alarm. He had the note from George, but he was already late and didn't want to disappoint George any further.

Finally, the cage-like elevator jerked to a stop and the door banged open. Fluker hefted the case easily onto his shoulder. His injuries had affected his brain more than his back. He was proud of the fact that he was still strong. Sometimes at work, guys would ask him to lift things for them. It made him happy.

He stepped out of the elevator into a kind of service area. A metal door led out. He opened it and found himself at the end of a long, carpeted hallway with framed pictures on the walls. He walked past the main elevators and past a comfortable-looking sofa. He had never felt like he had to sit down to wait for an elevator, but maybe some people did. Old folks, maybe disabled people. Who knew? Maybe rich people just liked to sit down a lot.

George's apartment was about three-quarters of the way down the hall. Fluker stood in front of the door, the long box still balanced on his shoulder but angled along the wall now so he could reach the door. He wasn't sure if he should knock or ring the bell. Seems like he'd heard somewhere that friends knocked, strangers and salesmen rang the bell.

He knocked.

The light shining through the peephole went dark for a couple of seconds. Then the door opened. George smiled at him. "I was hoping you'd see the note."

"Yeah, I saw it. Didn't figure there were any other Ray Flukers around."

"If you had a cellphone I could have called you."

Fluker waved a hand, dismissing the suggestion. "Haven't had need for one since I got back."

George stepped out of the way. "Don't stand out there all day, pal. Come on in. And thank you so much for lugging that old thing up here."

Fluker stepped inside. Behind him, George said, "I really wrenched my back something fierce getting that washer and dryer up."

Fluker couldn't see George anymore, but he said, "Why didn't you wait 'till I got here to give you a hand?"

The apartment was fantastic. Fluker had never seen anything so nice. Like it belonged in a magazine or something. A den with a stone fireplace, a kitchen with stainless steel and copper pots and pans hanging from hooks, looking like they'd never even been used, and a balcony. Oh, Lord, what a view. Like the whole city was the back yard except that you were two hundred feet above it.

The only thing that seemed out of place was the table. It looked like it had been dragged over from the little nook where it was supposed to go and set in front of the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. A pile of small sacks sat on top of the table. Bags of dry beans, maybe? Fluker was about to ask when he heard George say, "Just set it by the fireplace, if you don't mind." George was behind him, somewhere out of his sight.

"What is it?" Fluker asked, walking toward the stone fireplace.

"It's a telescope," George said.

"Like for looking at the stars and stuff?"

"Something like that," George answered, sounding like he was standing right behind Fluker.

Craning his neck to try to see his friend, Fluker said, "I didn't know you were into that sort of—" He felt two cold spots touch the base of his neck. Like metal...Then he heard, and almost seemed to smell, the crackle of a sharp electric discharge.

Then everything went black.

Jake drove. The traffic was terrible and so were his nerves as he tried to steer the big green land yacht in concentric circles around Dealey Plaza while passing by Dallas cops and state troopers at every turn. Favreau sat in the passenger seat with the Dallas Morning News in his lap, folded so that just the graphic of downtown showed. He would look down at the newspaper graphic, then scan the skyline, focusing on one tall building after another.

Jake glanced at the Frenchman. "When we first met, you said you had a photographic memory."

Favreau answered without looking at Jake. "I have an excellent memory."

"Then why can't you find the building?"

"Perhaps I exaggerated," Favreau said. "I meant it's photographic some of the time."

"Now needs to be one of those times."

"It's been three months since I saw those photographs."

"Think," Jake said.

"Son?" Gordon said from the back seat.

Jake eyed him in the rearview mirror.

"Jake," Gordon corrected himself. "He's trying as hard as he can. Extra pressure is not going to help."

Jake opened his mouth to reply, intending to remind everyone that they were all federal fugitives, driving in circles through an army of cops in downtown Dallas, barely three hours before a presidential speech, in a stolen car, when Favreau pointed out the window and said, "There it is!"

Jake followed Favreau's finger. There was more than one building. "Which one?"

"The tall one," Favreau said.

"They're all tall."

"The gray one."

The building was smoked glass with white trim running up the sides, probably stucco. "The one with the white..." Jake wasn't sure what to call them. "The white lines?"

"Yes."

It was at least ten blocks away. And in this traffic, who knew how long that would take. They couldn't afford to be wrong. "Are you sure?" Jake asked.

The Frenchman hesitated for just a second, then said, "Yes, that's the building I saw in the photograph. I'd stake my life on it."

"Good, because you're staking the president's life on it," Jake said as he spun the wheel and turned down a side street that was only backed up about halfway with traffic.

***

Fluker lay in a heap on the hardwood floor. Gertz kneeled beside him and jabbed a syringe into his neck and shot five milliliters of Propofol into his bloodstream. Fluker twitched a few times then dropped into an even deeper level of unconsciousness.

Rising, Gertz laid the stun gun and the empty syringe on the narrow console table behind the sofa. Then he picked up the plastic case Fluker had hauled upstairs for him.

The five-foot long, rugged, hard-sided case was made by a company called Pelican, which specialized in manufacturing waterproof and shockproof containers for all sorts of sensitive equipment in a variety of sizes. Gertz laid the case in front of the fireplace and popped open the four latches, then raised the hinged lid. The inside of the case was filled with dense foam, part of which had been carefully carved out to form an inset in the shape and size of a large scoped rifle, complete with room for a folded bipod under the forend. But there was no rifle inside the case. Just eight common masonry bricks wedged into the rifle's inset.

Gertz looked at Fluker and saw his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. Getting the correct dosage of Propofol had been important. Gertz didn't want Fluker to die. Not yet. And not of an overdose. Fluker needed to keep breathing until the very end. His autopsy needed to show searing and scorching in his lungs and the presence of white phosphorous.

If Gertz had been a different kind of man, he might have felt sorry for the poor dumb bastard. But he wasn't that kind of man, and he didn't feel sorry for Fluker. He merely thought of the mentally damaged US military veteran as a tool. Just like the Mercedes, the Steiners, and the Barrett were all tools to help Gertz accomplish his mission, Ray Fluker was a tool, an easily duped tool who had thought he was doing his new friend "George" a favor.

There had been no new washer and dryer to haul up. Only a rifle case, empty except for the bricks to give it some weight. And the only reason Gertz had had to go to so much trouble to arrange for Fluker to bring the case up in the service elevator was so the security camera could record him doing it.

Gertz removed the bricks from the rifle case and stacked them on the hearth beside the fireplace. He set a potted peace lily on top of the pile. Then he closed the case and carried it into the bedroom, to the tightly made up queen-sized bed. His training in the Deutsches Heer, the post-Cold War German Army, had not left him, and he always made up whatever bed he slept in as soon as he got up, even in hotels.

He laid the empty Pelican case on the bed beside the gun it was meant to carry, a Barrett M-82 .50-caliber semiautomatic rifle, equipped with a sixteen-power Leupold scope. The rifle's nylon stock had a bipod attached beneath the forend, but Gertz would not need the bipod today. He picked up the heavy rifle and walked back into the den.

The sliding glass door leading from the den to the balcony was open, and just inside the door stood the round breakfast table. Piled in the center of the table were five sacks of dry beans, each weighing 2.3 kilograms, five pounds in the American system. Two of the sacks lay side by side, with two more on top of them, and the fifth sack centered on top of the other four. Gertz laid the rifle's forend across the stack.

What he had discovered while trying to line up his shot was that with the rifle positioned on the table and braced on its attached bipod, the downward angle of the barrel he needed to use to align the muzzle with the target would not clear the balcony railing. The railing was several inches too high to shoot over. So he had bought sacks of beans to build up his shooting platform. First he tried three, but the rifle still wasn't quite high enough to shoot over the railing. So he bought two more. Now the angle was perfect.

There were several other important tools on the table: his Steiner 15x80 binoculars, now mounted on a small tripod with telescoping legs and adjusted to hold the binoculars at the approximate height and angle of the rifle's scope; a digital stopwatch; a walkie-talkie, the kind you could pick up in a double-pack at Radio Shack; and a Heckler & Koch USP 9mm pistol.