Head Shot

'Interesting,' said Skinner, 'but it sounds on the up-and-up.'

'I'd agree,' replied Doherty. 'Except for two things: Kosinski's cellphone is stil out and I can't locate him, plus this. Less than half an hour after I spoke to him, Arthur Wilkins left his office to go home for lunch. He was shot dead in its private parking garage, just as he was climbing into his Lexus. My Chicago guys heard the police department alert and called me.

'And you guess right: no, the police didn't catch anyone.' Suppressed fury exploded from the deputy director. 'Bob, I have a renegade; a fucking renegade within the Bureau. When I trace this bastard, he's as good as dead.'

'Hey, cool down, man. Who says you're going to have to trace him?' asked Skinner. 'You may be jumping to a big conclusion.'

'You kidding?'

'No, I'm not kidding. Whether it's Kosinski who's been taking these people out or not, the killer is a very clever guy. He also has access to files and information that I suspect are beyond even you. We suspected Kosinski because of the timing of the explosion, and the theory that it could have been set to kil us as well. But this guy has the resources to hack into sophisticated computer systems and delete records. Do you think he couldn't have bugged Jackson Wylie's office, or the Wilkins firm in Chicago?'

'So why can't I contact Kosinski now?'

'Maybe his cel phone battery's gone soft; maybe his pager's lying on the bathroom shelf. Maybe by now he's been taken out himself, if that envelope Wilkins handed over is significant. You see? Your man may be a suspect, but by now he may also be a victim. If he's either, the odds are that you'l never see him again.'

'Oh no, why not?'

'If Kosinski killed these people, then after Wilkins, he's blown, and he'll disappear back into whatever outfit planted him in the Bureau in the first place. If he didn't, and that envelope contained what I think it might have, it made him a target as soon as he left the Wilkins building.

If he has been killed, they'l make him disappear, so that you, being essential y a dumb copper like me, will assume that he was the bad guy al along.'

'I wish I was a dumb copper like you,' Doherty grunted. 'Any way we can tell which is which?'

'No, but if you find that Wilkins was killed by a bullet from Kosinski's Bureau-issue firearm, you'll know that he's gone, one way or another.

He either kil ed him, or they made it look as if he did.'

'They?'

'The same people who kil ed the president.'

'What!?' The word escaped as a cut-off scream. 'Bob, what the f…'

Skinner laughed. 'Okay, okay, okay. Calm down, Joe; I'm about seven steps ahead of myself. But here's what I know from Sarah. Wilkins, Garrett and Jack Wylie were all members of the Secret Service back in the early sixties, sharp kids straight out of law school looking for something extra on their curriculum vitae. Leo Grace wasn't, but he was one of their circle; they all knew him because they all played on the president's Sunday football team, and so did Leo. According to Sarah he was the only guy there who wasn't in the Service.

'When Leo left Washington, eventual y, they gave him a footbal, signed by the Man and al the guys. That's been stolen from the house up here. So have two photographs of the squad.'

'Shit!' Doherty squealed.

'Aye. Anyhow, he settles in Buffalo, and a few years later he invites Jackson Wylie into his firm. They all live happily ever after. There's no mention ofGarrett or Wilkins, and no contact we know of, either through the law, or through their shared political interests. Then last January, out of the blue, Wylie tells his secretary that he and Leo Grace… who hasn't shot anything since Korea… are going to kill deer in the Appalachians. This is peculiar also, since Leo doesn't own a rifle.

'I'd like to know who else went on that trip, and where exactly they went. I'd like to know also about the purchase by one of the four, somewhere, of three, possibly four, identical Apple Mac iBook laptop computers. Most of all, I'd like to see the Secret Service duty rosters for November 22, 1963; it would be interesting to know whether Wylie, Garrett and Wilkins were on duty that day.'

'Why, for God's sake?'

'The only time Leo ever talked to Sarah about those sixties years, he referred to "them" shooting the president. Sure, I know it's just a word, but Leo weighed every word he used. Joe, when all else fails, I go by hunches. In this case, my nose tells me that these three guys either knew who killed the president, or… they did it themselves.'

Doherty sighed. 'I don't know if I want to hear this, Bob. If you're crazy, I'm crazy for listening to you. And if you're right… I'm stil crazy for listening to you.' He paused. 'But what about Leo? How did he know?'

'My guess is that Jack Wylie told him at some point; maybe not that he'd done it, but that there had been a plot and he knew who was involved. I guess too that with old age looming, and al it brings with it, the three of them, Wylie, Garrett and Wilkins, may have decided that at the very least they had to make a record of the truth. But they needed someone else, someone from that time who could vouch for them al; so Wylie approached Leo.

'They met up, in the Appalachians or wherever… and from that point they were done. I'll bet you, Joe, that these guys have been watched, from the day they left the Service.'

'Watched? By who?'

'By whoever set up the assassination. The CIA, the Mafia, another agency, I don't know; but they've been keeping tabs on these guys for the last thirty years and more.'

'Why not kil them back then?'

'Then kil the guys who killed them? Where would it end? How long before the last gullible American died and there was no one left to believe that Oswald did it? No, you don't take that risk til you have to.

But when those three guys, plus Leo Grace, the president's friend, got together, that time had come.

'They must have realised the danger, though; or at least Leo must have. Straight after that trip in January, he went out and bought those two automatics.'

There was a long silence. Skinner let it run its course. 'Kosinski,' said Doherty, after ful y two minutes. 'If it was Kosinski, why him, why someone in the Bureau?'

'Deniability. The organisation that planned or commissioned the hit wouldn't, then or now, use someone who led back to its door. But like I said, it may not have been Kosinski. He may be dead himself. Wait till they dig the bullet out of Wilkins: see if it's FBI issue.'

'And if it isn't?'

'Then there's a fair chance it'll have come from a Glock 19. Leo's second gun is missing.'

'What will that tell us?'

'Fuck all, except that it'll mean Kosinski could still be in the game.'

'Jeez. So how dp we investigate all this?'

'You want to investigate it?'

'Sure as hell, I do. I guess I'd better brief the director, though.'

'Can you trust the director?'

'Bob!'

'Could you trust Kosinski?'

'Aw hell. Okay, what do I do?'

'Use Special Agent Brand. Have him go through the bank and credit card records of the other three guys. I have access to all Leo's stuff. See if they tell you where they were in January. See what they tell you about those laptops. That's al for now.'

'Okay, I'l do that, and I'l ask for a copy of the Wilkins autopsy report.'

'No. You do the Wilkins autopsy through your own people. You have the authority; father and son murdered in different states makes it your business, yes?'

'You're catching on. I'll get Chicago on to that; be back in touch.'

'What about the Secret Service rosters?'

'Now you are being crazy. That stuff's off limits.'

'Tell me, Joe, aren't all records in the US computerised by now?'

'Pretty much.'

'And is the Bureau the only law enforcement agency in the US that doesn't know how to hack into a computer?'