The Second Shooter (32 page)

"I'm not going to kill you," Jake said.

The driver nodded at Favreau. "But what about him?"

"He's not going to kill you either," Jake said. "Nobody is going to kill you. All we need is a ride."

Favreau glanced at Jake. "We don't actually have any money. To pay the fare."

And that was true. All their personal property had been taken from them and sealed in plastic bags at the police station.

"That's no problem," the driver said. "No problem at all." He pointed to the meter on the dashboard. "My meter is not even running."

"Just drive," Favreau said. "And I promise you, everything will be all right."

Jake glanced at his watch, then peeked around the driver for a glimpse at the speedometer. "Not too slow. We do have to get there."

"But you haven't told me where we are going," the driver said.

"Straight," Favreau snapped. "Until I tell you to turn."

Jake looked at the Frenchman. "How do you know the man you saw was the shooter?"

"He was on the balcony with a pair of binoculars."

"Maybe he was watching the plaza, hoping to get a look at the president."

"He can't see the plaza from there."

"Is that all?" Jake said, feeling like the weight of everything they had done was about to crush him.

Favreau shook his head. "That's where I would shoot from."

Max Garcia sliced through the heavy traffic, double-footing the accelerator and brake and blasting the horn.

"Slow down, for Christsakes," Blackstone said. He was kneeling on the front passenger seat, leaning over the backrest into the rear compartment and holding a half-loaded syringe. "You're going to make me stab myself."

Garcia cut between a delivery truck and a Volvo station wagon, maybe an inch to spare at either end, prompting a long blow on the horn from the woman driving the Volvo. He glanced in the rearview mirror. Gordon McCay was unconscious, having already received half of the heavy dose of Xylazine animal tranquilizer in Blackstone's syringe. With his injuries McCay had been an easy target. The FBI intel analyst, however, was proving more difficult. She was kicking and clawing at Blackstone as he tried to jab her with the thick needle.

"Do you need me to stop and do it myself?" Garcia said.

"Fuck you," Blackstone said. "I got it." Then he leaned farther into the back seat and made a stabbing motion with his arm. The girl screamed. Then very quickly her struggles diminished. Blackstone turned around and sat down in the passenger seat. "Out like Sleeping Beauty," he said.

Garcia spotted the back of a taxi ahead of them. He accelerated and cut off an aging minivan to draw abreast of the cab. Then he blew the Tahoe's horn and waved to the taxi driver to pull over. The cab driver ignored him and changed lanes to put some distance between them.

"What the fuck are you doing?" Blackstone shouted. "We got two people knocked out in the back seat. Both of them are about to be dead, and one of them works for the FBI. Are you trying to get us arrested?"

Ignoring him, Garcia shoehorned the Tahoe into the next lane and again pulled up beside the taxi. This time the driver refused to even look at them. Garcia swerved in front of the cab and jammed on the brakes. The Tahoe skidded to a stop with the taxi sliding on locked tires right behind it.

Garcia jumped out of the Chevrolet waving his Marshals Service ID at the cabbie. "US Marshals," he said. Then he slapped his credentials against the window and motioned for the driver to roll it down. The driver looked scared but he complied. When the window as down, Garcia said, "I'm a deputy US marshal and I need your help."

"What kind of help?" the driver stammered. He was an Anglo with a thick west Texas drawl.

"You do know the president is in town, right?"

"Yes, sir," the driver said. "I heard it on the radio, and I been fighting the traffic all dang morning."

"This is a presidential emergency," Garcia said as traffic backed up behind them and angry drivers laid on their horns. "My partner needs a ride. He'll give you the address in a minute. Just wait here." Then Garcia walked back to the Tahoe and looked in at a confused Blackstone, still sitting in the passenger seat. "Get out," Garcia said.

"Please tell me this is part of a plan and not a very badly timed senior moment," Blackstone said, making no move to get out of the SUV.

Garcia glanced at his watch. Then he pulled a scuffed leather-bound notebook and a pen from his pocket and scribbled an address on one of the pages. "This will be over in less than an hour. All you have to do is keep Favreau and Miller out of this building." He tore out the page and handed it to Blackstone. "Take the cab. If they show up...stop them."

Blackstone didn't move other than to look down at the address in his hand. "So this is where..."

"Yes."

Looking up from the torn sheet of notebook paper, Blackstone said, "But how could the Frenchman possibly know where your shooter is?"

"First, he's not my shooter. I thought I made that clear. Second, we, and I do mean we, have been underestimating our opposition all along. Favreau is very resourceful. Apparently, so is Agent Miller. Miss Chapman is an intelligence analyst. As for Gordon McCay...I've read his books. All of them. And he's gotten closer to the truth than anyone else."

"Doesn't matter how smart they are. They couldn't have found the—"

The taxi driver tooted his horn.

Garcia turned and gave him a look that shut off any complaint, even though behind the taxi several drivers were screaming their anger through their own horns.

Garcia turned back to Blackstone. "Go."

Reluctantly, Blackstone climbed out of the car. "Where are you going?"

Garcia nodded at the unconscious bodies slumped in the back seat. "To get rid of them."

***

A Secret Service agent wearing a dark suit, aviator sunglasses, and a discrete earbud pulled open the rear door of the limousine and moved aside to make room for the president to step out. Noah Omar could hear the crowd, a few thousand at least, clapping and cheering, the sound like music to him, making his heart beat faster as he turned to help his wife out of the car.

As Mona took his hand, she looked up at him. "You ready?"

"Of course I am," he said. "I've been preparing for this my whole life."

She climbed out and stood beside him. "Preparing for what?"

"To be Jack Kennedy."

She leaned close and whispered in his ear, "And that makes me who, Jackie...or Marilyn?"

The president was about to give her an answer, but Richard Finch climbed out of the limousine and stood beside them. The president noticed his deputy chief of staff looked pale and sweaty. "You sure it's just the chicken?"

"Might have picked up a bug somewhere," Finch said.

"Maybe you should stay in the car," suggested the first lady.

"I agree," the president said. "If you start feeling better, you can join us on the museum tour or at the reception."

Finch hesitated, then said, "Are you sure, sir? Because if you need me, I—"

The president cut him off. "I can handle the speech on my own, Richard, but I need somebody to beat on the links later."

Nodding, Finch said, "If I am coming down with something, might be best not to shake a bunch of hands."

"You sit tight," the president said. "Nobody wants you puking on the podium. Just don't leave without us."

Then the president of the United States, surrounded by Secret Service agents, stepped away from the limousine and toward the crowd. The noise, which had ebbed since the limousine door had first opened, doubled in an instant. Noah Omar took his wife's hand as he scanned the throng. There were plenty of American flags and only a few protest signs.

He looked up at the presidential podium, erected on the sidewalk in front of the main entrance to the old School Book Depository Building. The temporary podium was draped with red, white, and blue bunting and supported at least forty dignitaries, most of them local and state officials, all crowded into four packed rows of folding chairs, the chairs close enough together so that everyone could be in the photo-op with the president on this historic day of commemoration. A pair of Secret Service agents guarded either end of the podium, and in the middle stood a lectern draped in dark blue and bearing the presidential seal.

This is going to be a good day, the president thought. The speech was good. The weather was fine. The crowd was excited. Then, as the 44th president of the United States climbed the short set of steps to the podium, he couldn't help but glance high overhead at the window: sixth floor, southeast corner, the sniper's nest, from where a strange little man named Lee Harvey Oswald had fired the shots that killed the 35th president of the United States.

An unexpected and unpleasant chill ran through Noah Omar.

***

Walsh pressed the power button on the remote control console that operated the glider. The glider was a beautiful piece of machinery, sleek and efficient, full of long lines and graceful curves. Given the right conditions it could ride the air for hours. It's perfectly formed aerodynamic shape was only spoiled by two things: a string of Black Cat firecrackers duct taped to the top surface of the wing, and the nub of a tiny fiber-optic camera protruding from the underside of the fuselage between the nose and the wing.

The weight of the firecrackers and the small camera would certainly affect the flight characteristics of the glider, as would the disturbance they created in the airflow over its otherwise flawlessly smooth surfaces, but after making those modifications Walsh had tested the glider and found only minimal degradation in its handling and range.

After double-checking that the camera was switched on and sending its images via microwave to the antenna set up on the balcony, and then by wire to the laptop, Walsh turned to the flat-screen TV on the wall, which was set to a local station and showing a live feed of the ceremony being held two and a half miles away in Dealey Plaza.

On the television, Walsh saw the president and first lady inching along the podium from the North Houston Street side, shaking hands and exchanging greetings with a line of political bigwigs and wannabe bigwigs as they made their way to their seats near the lectern. The in-studio news announcer, shown in a box at the bottom corner of the screen, was droning on about what a historic day this was and what an honor it was to have President Noah Omar, himself a historic president, at Dealey Plaza to memorialize another great American president...blah, blah, blah.

Walsh tuned out the talking head and picked up the glider, rotating the wings vertically so they would fit through the sliding glass door. Then he stepped out onto the balcony.

"We had one chance. And it was ridiculously slim. Anorexic. But what choice did we have? I didn't have all the pieces to the puzzle, but I knew with absolute certainty that we were the only ones who could stop the assassination."

***

Jake ordered the terrified Pakistani taxi driver to stop on North Lamar Street under the Highway 366 overpass. Then Jake got out of the back seat and pulled open the driver's door.

"Oh, no, no, no," the driver said in his lilting English as he clamped his hands together on top of the steering wheel in supplication. "For God's sake, please don't kill me. I have a wife and three small children."

Ashamed of what he was putting this man through, Jake hid the Berretta pistol behind his leg. "I'm not going to kill you. I just need your cab. I'm an FB—"

"Take the cab," the driver pleaded, refusing to meet Jake's eyes and looking down at the dirty floorboard. "I won't tell the police anything about you. I'll say it was two black men who robbed me."

"No!" Jake said. "Don't do that. I'm...we're not robbing you. This isn't a robbery. It's an emergency. A matter of life and death. We need to get to a certain building to save...to save someone's life. I'll leave your cab parked in front of the building, undamaged. Once we're done I'll call the Dallas police myself and report the location."

"Okay," the driver said, clearly not believing Jake.

"We need to go now," said Favreau, who was standing beside the passenger door.

Jake laid his left hand-the one without the gun-on the driver's shoulder. The taxi driver jumped. "Get out of the car, please. No one is going to hurt you."

The driver raised his hands in surrender. "Do you promise you are not going to kill me?"

"Yes, I promise," Jake said. "I give you my word. All we need is your car, and only for a little while. You'll get it back."

Hesitantly, like he was expecting a bullet in the neck, the taxi driver climbed out. Once he was standing, he raised his hands again.

"Take his driver's license," Favreau said.

"Why?" Jake asked, eyeing the Frenchman over the roof of the cab. Then he realized that the taxi driver's hands were raised and the pistol Jake was holding was probably visible to any passing motorist. "Put your hands down," Jake told the driver as he pressed the side of the Beretta against his own stomach and did his best to cover it with his other forearm. "We're not robbing you."

"We need his address in case he calls the police before we're finished," Favreau said. "Then we'll know where to find his family."

Jake stared at Favreau. "We're not—" Then he realized Favreau was bluffing. He turned back to the driver. "Give me your wallet."

The driver did, and Jake pulled out the man's driver's license before handing him back his wallet. "I'll leave this in the car, in the glove compartment. We need..." He glanced at Favreau. "At least thirty minutes?"

"Make it an hour. But we have to leave now."

Jake told the driver, "Go have a cup of coffee. Read the newspaper. In an hour call the police and give them your cab number. By then they'll know right where it is."

The driver eyed the dried blood spattered on Jake's face and clothes. "So you really are going to let me go?"

"That's what I've been trying to tell you," Jake said. Then he pointed down the street. "Now go, just walk until you find a coffee shop or a Seven-Eleven or something."