The Second Shooter (29 page)

A loud metal click sounded from the opposite end of the room. A key turning in a lock. Jake looked at the steel door just as an overweight police sergeant with a bad combover shoved open the door and stepped into the room.

Two men followed the sergeant in, one Latino, the other an Anglo. Jake felt his stomach sink to the floor. The Anglo marched in with the easy confidence of a veteran commander, used to men snapping to attention when he entered a room. The Latino looked just as confident, maybe even more so, but without the swagger. He was a lot older than his colleague, so maybe he had less to prove. Jake, of course, recognized them both as the same two men who had chased him and the others halfway across the country. And now that they had their quarry trapped, they were moving in for the kill.

***

Max Garcia finally had them. Locked up with no chance for escape. And because he finally had them, he barely even looked at them as he followed the fat police sergeant into the holding tank. He didn't need to look at them. They were his. "We'll take them off your hands now," Garcia said.

The police sergeant stopped and turned around. Before he could speak, Garcia shoved a folded sheet of paper into his hand. The paper was folded lengthwise. The sergeant unfolded it and gave it a cursory glance. Then he looked back up at Garcia. "I'm afraid I can't let you have them. Not yet, anyways."

"Why not?" Garcia asked, not liking this new twist one bit. When the fat sergeant had agreed to let Garcia and Blackstone-two federal marshals-see the fugitives, the sergeant hadn't said anything about their not being able to take immediate custody of the prisoners.

"They may be federal fugitives," the sergeant said, "but they broke Texas law. We have to book them first."

Garcia nodded toward the paper in the sergeant's hand. "That's a writ from a federal judge." It wasn't, of course, just a good forgery, but no one would find that out until long after Garcia and Blackstone were gone with their prisoners.

"Don't matter," the sergeant insisted. "They still got to be processed."

"So process them," Blackstone said, "and turn them over to us."

The sergeant shook his head. "I can't process them here. I got to send them over to Central Lockup."

"What?" Blackstone shot back.

Garcia held up a hand to silence Blackstone. Then he said to the sergeant, "How long will that take?"

The sergeant glanced at his watch. "Got a wagon leaving in fifteen minutes. Give or take."

"Give or take what?" Garcia asked.

"Traffic mainly. Probably got stuck in it yourselves on the way here. It's crazy out there."

Garcia walked past the sergeant. He eyed the four people he'd chased across the country. The four people who had come so close to screwing everything up for him. They were in separate cells, all on their feet, all looking at him through barred doors. He was so close. No way was he going to drop the ball this late in the game. The last thing he needed was some desk jockey cop getting his panties in a wad and looking too hard at that federal writ. Better play it by the numbers, at least while he was inside a police station. Worse case, well...there were alternatives. There were always alternatives.

Garcia turned back to the fat sergeant. "Once they're at Central Lockup, how long before we can take custody?"

The sergeant shrugged. "Depends on how busy they are."

"Ballpark," Garcia said with a smile he didn't feel.

"Usually an hour, hour and a half," the sergeant said. "But again...you got to factor in all that's going on downtown today."

Garcia sought to clarify. "With the president, you mean?"

The sergeant nodded.

"So we might be looking at two hours or more?" Garcia asked.

"At least that," the fat sergeant said. "And that's only if the duty ADA don't want to arraign them first before he hands them over to you."

"Is that a possibility?"

"Could be. Depending on how much of a fuss that family kicks up."

"Family?" Garcia said.

"The one whose apartment they busted into," the sergeant said. "If the husband has some kind of connection downtown, with the DA or the mayor..."

Garcia nodded. Then he saw Favreau staring at him through the steel bars. Garcia returned the stare. He almost smiled but held it back. It wouldn't do for the sergeant to see that. Then he noticed Jake Miller, the young FBI agent, looking at both of them. Garcia had no idea how much the Frenchman had told the FBI agent, but he was sure the man knew too much.

Then Miller turned to the cop. "Sergeant?"

The sergeant gave Miller an unsympathetic look. "What?"

"I don't know what these men have told you, but I'm an FBI agent and I can promise you that they," he pointed to Garcia and Blackstone, "are not who they say they are. And that piece of paper they gave you, their so-called writ, is a fake."

"Son," the sergeant said, as if talking to a petulant child, "I'm already having a bad day, and it's only going to get worse. So for your own sake, I suggest you not waste my time. But if you really want to test me, I can lose your paperwork and make sure you get dropped into a cell that a young white boy like you won't be able to walk out of."

"That won't be necessary, sergeant," Garcia said. "We intend to get them out of your—"He almost said hair until he looked again at the pink skin peeking out between the strands of the sergeant's combover. No sense pissing the man off. Not when he was so close to his goal. "Out of your jail as quickly as possible. And they won't bother you again. I can promise you that."

The sergeant glared at Garcia for a few seconds, no doubt sensitive about his hair loss, thus the combover. Then he nodded, spun on his heels, and strode to the steel door. He pulled it open and held it for Garcia and Blackstone. When they were all outside the holding tank, the sergeant slammed the door shut and spun the key. Garcia heard the bolt snap into place. He looked at his watch. In ninety minutes the president of the United States would be dead.

Before that happened, Garcia needed the Frenchman and his three little helpers under his control. Which meant he couldn't afford to wait for the slow grind of the Dallas legal bureaucracy to release them into his custody.

Time for one of those alternatives.

President Noah Omar and his wife rode in the back seat of the armored presidential limousine. As usual, Mona was typing on her iPhone. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, she kept up with all of them, just like their two teenage daughters. A Secret Service agent and the president's deputy chief of staff, Richard Finch, sat in the rear-facing middle seats, in front of the president and first lady. The president gazed out the window at the buildings and the people rushing past as the motorcade rolled west on Main Street.

"Is this the same route Kennedy took?" the president asked.

"Yes, sir," the Secret Service agent said. "We tried to lay out another route, for security reasons, but..." He looked pointedly at Finch.

The deputy chief of staff nodded and cracked a smile that looked forced. "But for purely partisan political reasons I suggested we stick to the same route President and Mrs. Kennedy took."

"Well, I'm glad you did, Richard," the president said. Then he turned to the Secret Service agent. "No offense, but this way feels more...connected to history."

The first lady looked up from her phone. "It's kind of spooky, if you ask me."

"Spooky is a good word for it," the president said, realizing that was exactly the feeling he'd had since they landed at Love Field yesterday. Spooky. He looked at his wife. "But you're not getting superstitious on me, are you?"

"No. Not really." She shrugged. "Well, maybe just a little. I mean, you can't help but think about it. What it must have been like. Especially for her. How much it changed...everything. The whole world."

The president was glad he and Mona hadn't brought the girls on this trip. Neither of their daughters had much of a sense of history or any appreciation for it. November 22, 1963 was just a date to remember for a test and then forget. They knew a man had killed the president here a long time ago, but it was an even-money bet, the president thought, whether either of his girls could name the assassin. Still, what teenagers-even the nation's "first daughters"-needed all these reminders of death? If his wife thought the trip was spooky, the girls certainly would have. They were just like their mother in so many ways, both of them. He patted Mona's knee.

She was already back to typing on her iPhone. "What?"

"Nothing," President Omar said. "Just thinking."

"About?"

"That fifty years ago our parents' generation was getting blasted with fire hoses and having dogs turned loose on them." He smiled and raised his hands, gesturing to the interior of the presidential limousine. "And now look at us."

"Took long enough," she said, managing to work a bitter edge into her words without looking up or even breaking stride with her thumbs. Then she added, "And as I recall from history, JFK wasn't exactly chomping at the bit to pass the Civil Rights Act."

"He had a reluctant Congress," the president said. "And believe me, that's something I can understand. If I lose the Senate next year..."

Now she did look up from her phone. "Then you shove executive orders down their throats."

"It's not just the Republicans," he said.

They rode in silence for a few minutes, the deputy chief of staff staring out the window the whole time.

"Richard, are you all right?" the president asked.

Finch looked at the president but didn't quite meet his eye. "Yes, sir, I'm fine."

"You look a little...peaked."

With a forced smile, Finch said, "Might be the chicken from last night."

"In that case, I'm glad I had the fish," the president said. "You still good to play a round after the speech?"

"Absolutely, sir."

The president smiled. "You're worried about what happened to Connally aren't you?"

"Connally, sir?"

"Governor Connally," the president said. "And getting hit in the crossfire in case history repeats itself."

"Noah," the first lady snapped, looking up from her iPhone.

The president turned to the Secret Service agent, more to needle Richard than anything else. "So what do you think?"

"About what, sir?" the agent said, as if he hadn't heard anything that had been said before.

"Are we going to be safe at this event?"

"Of course, sir," the agent said. "We've taken extraordinary precautions."

"Why extraordinary?" the president asked. "Is there something I should know?"

The agent shook his head. "Just the venue, sir. And history."

"That's not what I was thinking about, sir," Richard Finch protested. "And I'm sorry if I—"

The president dismissed Finch's apology with a wave. "I'm just messing with you, Richard. But I tell you what, in the last five years I've become somewhat of a minor scholar on presidential assassinations and attempted assassinations."

"I don't think this is a good time to talk about that," Mona said.

The president turned to his wife. "What better time could there be?" He pointed out the window. "Look around you. This is one of the epicenters of history. You said it yourself, after Dallas, the whole world changed." He didn't wait for her to respond before he turned back to Finch. "Everybody knows about Kennedy and Reagan. But how many people know that a man fired five shots at Franklin Roosevelt in Miami and hit four people? Two of them died, including the mayor of Chicago, who had the bad luck to be shaking hands with Roosevelt when the shooting started."

"I didn't know that," Finch said. "Or if I did..."

"You forgot," said the president.

The deputy chief of staff nodded.

"And so did just about everybody else," the president continued. "Then a few years later, two Puerto Rican nationalists attacked Blair House and almost killed Harry Truman. And Gerald Ford, who never even wanted to be president, came close to being assassinated twice in the span of two weeks."

"Noah, I don't want to hear about assassins and assassinations," Mona said. "Especially not right now."

The president shrugged. "Baby, when you're the target of as much hatred as I am, as we both are, it helps to know what to look out for. You remember what George Santayana said, Those who forget history are—"

"Doomed to repeat it," the first lady finished for him. "It's not an exact quote but close enough."

"There are a whole lot of books in the White House library that I've never even heard of," the president said with a smile. "And one I happened to pick up a while back was about presidential assassins. It's actually pretty interesting."

Mona gave the Secret Service agent a look that said, Can you shut him up? The agent just shrugged.

President Omar glanced at his watch. He didn't actually need to keep track of the time. He had a dozen people who did that for him. Richard was one of them. But the watch, a Timex, had been a gift from Mona on their first anniversary. Back when they barely had two nickels to rub together. Now he had an Omega, a TAG, a Jorg Gray, even a Patek Philippe, but he still kept a battery in the old Timex and every once in a while he pulled it out and wore it. He thought of it as sort of a good luck charm. So why was he wearing it now?

"Something wrong, Mr. President?" Richard Finch asked.

The president looked up from his watch without even really noticing the time. "How are we on time?"

Finch checked his own watch, then opened his leather portfolio and consulted a printed copy of the daily agenda. "We're fine, sir. The commemoration party will gather at the front steps at 11:55. The ceremony will begin at noon. After introductions, you will speak from 12:10 to 12:25. Then Father O'Donnell will give the benediction and ask for a moment of silence. The bell will toll thirty-five times beginning at exactly twelve-thirty and last ninety seconds."

"Isn't there a tour of the museum?" the first lady asked.

"Yes, ma'am. A quick one, from 12:35 to one o'clock."

"And the reception?" Mona asked.