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Finally, he saw Jill. She looked so cool and utterly unconcerned.
She was such a great psycho in her own right, wasn't she?
Jill stood there in the middle of all the fuss and bustle. Then she
disappeared inside the Waldorf with the rest of them.
The photojournalist finally sauntered away, down Park toward what had once
been the Pan Am Building and now belonged to MetLife. A float with Snoopy
driving Santa's sleigh stood out on the building's rooftop.
The President ought to buy some term life insurance tonight, he thought,
whatever the price. The assassination is as good as done.
It was guaranteed.
But what Kevin Hawkins didn't even suspect, didn't realize, was that he too
was being watched. He was under close observation, at that very moment, in New
York City.
Jack was watching Kevin Hawkins stroll down Park Avenue.
JACK BE NIMBLEST.
Jack be quickest.
After he had watched Kevin Hawkins disappear on Park Avenue, Sam Harrison left
the crowded area near the Waldorf. New York was already as stirred up about
Jack and Jill as Washington, D.C. That was good. It would make everything
easier.
There was something he had to do now. He had to do this, no matter what the
risks. It was the most important thing to him.
At the corner of Lexington Avenue and Forty-seventh Street, he stopped at a
pay phone booth. Surprisingly, the damn contraption actually worked. Maybe the
only one that did in midtown.
As he dialed, he watched a garish street hooker plying her trade across
Lexington. Nearby, a middle-aged gay man was picking up a blond teenager.
Urban cowboys and girls sashayed into a peculiar New York bar called Ride'm
High. He mourned for the old New York, for America as it had been, for real
cowboys and real men.
He had important and necessary work to do in New York. Jack and Jill was
heading toward its climax. He was confident that the real truth would go to
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his grave with him. It had to be like that.
The truth had always been far too dangerous for the public to know. The truth
didn't usually set people free, it just got them crazier.
Most people just couldn't handle the truth.
He finally reached a number in Maryland. There was a very small risk in the
phone call, but he had to take it. He had to do this one thing for his own
sanity.
A little girl's voice came on the phone. Immediately, he felt the most
incredible relief, but also a joy he hadn't experienced in days. The girl
sounded as if she were right there in New York.
"This is Karon speaking. How may I help you?" she said.
He had taught her to answer the phone.
He closed his eyes tight, and all of New York's depressing tawdriness,
everything he was about to do was suddenly, effectively, shut out. Even Jack
and Jill was gone from his thoughts for the briefest of moments. He was in a
safety zone. He was home.
His little girl was what really counted for him now. She was the only thing
that mattered. She'd been permitted to wait up late for his call.
He wasn't Jack as he cradled the phone receiver against his chin.
He wasn't Sam Harrison.
"It's Daddy," he said to his youngest child. "Hello, pumpkin-eater.
I miss you to bits. How are you? Where's Mommy?" he asked. "Are you guys
taking good care of each other? I'll be home real soon. Do you miss me? I sure
miss you."
He had to get away. with this, he thought as he talked to his daughter, and
then to his wife. Jack and Jill had to succeed.
He had to change history. He couldn't go home in a body bag. In disgrace. As
the worst American traitor since Benedict Arnold.
No, the body bag was for President Thomas Byrnes. He deserved to die. So had
all the others. They were all traitors in their own way Jack and Jill came to
The Hill To kill, to kill, to kill.
And soon -- very soon -- it would be finished.
SOMETHING was clearly wrong at the hotel. We hadn't been at the Waldorf for
more than a few minutes when I knew there was a serious breach in security I
could see the way the Secret Service agents closed around President Byrnes and
his wife as they entered the glittery hotel foyer.
Thomas and Sally Byrnes were hurriedly being escorted to their suite of rooms
on the twenty-first floor. I knew the drill by heart. NYPD detectives had been
working closely with the Secret Service detail. They had checked every
conceivable and inconceivable method of infiltration into the Waldorf,
including subways, sewers, and all the underground passages. Bomb-sniffing
dogs had been marched through the midtown hotel just before our arrival. The
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dogs had also been taken that afternoon to the Plaza and the Pierre, other
possible choices for the President's stay
"Alex." I heard from behind. "Alex, over here. In here, Alex."
Jay Grayer beckoned with his hand. "We've got a little problem already I don't
know how they managed it, but they're definitely here in New York. Jack and
Jill are here."
"What the hell is going on here, Jay?" I asked the Secret Service agent as we
hurried past glass cases filled with quart-size perfume bottles and expensive
clothing accessories.
Jay Grayer led me to the hotel's administrative offices, which were directly
behind the front desk on the lobby floor. The room was already filled with
Secret Service, FBI agents, and New York City police honchos. Everybody seemed
to be listening to earphones or hand transmitters. They looked stressed-out,
including the hotel management, with their own director of security and the
proud claim that every president since Hoover had stayed at the Waldorf.
Grayer finally turned to me and said, "A delivery of flowers came about ten
minutes ago. They're from our friends Jack and Jill. There's another rhyme
with the flowers."
"Let's take a look at it. Let me see the message, please."
The note was on a mahogany desk next to an arrangement of blood-red roses. I
read it as Grayer looked over my shoulder.
Jack and Jill went up The Hill And surprised the Chief with flowers.
We're here in town We're counting down Your last remaining hours.
"They want us to believe they're a couple of kooks," I said to Jay
"Do you?"
"I sure as hell don't, but they're sticking with it. It's consistent as hell
and it's all a plan. They definitely know what they're doing, and we
definitely don't."
And Jack and Jill were definitely in New York City THE HEAVY WOODEN DOOR into
President Thomas Byrnes's master bedroom opened at a few minutes past
midnight. The Waldorf's presidential suite consisted of four bedrooms and two [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]