Tracie flashed a smile at Shane. “We’re back in business,” she said.
45
The Minuteman Mutual Insurance Building was old. It had clearly been constructed over a century ago and was a throwback to a more elegant time, with ornate granite columns soaring over the Columbia Road sidewalk, an architectural dinosaur somehow managing to avoid extinction into the late 1900s. It looked slightly out of place next to its more modern neighbors, like a dowdy grandmother dressed in decades-old finery at the family reunion. At just seven stories high, the building was stubby by today’s standards.
They had driven a couple of blocks west of the Minuteman Building in an attempt to avoid the worst of the traffic that inevitably accompanied a presidential appearance. The trip from the accident scene to the Minuteman Building’s Columbia Road address had taken much longer than Tracie anticipated thanks to that congestion, and she drove the stolen station wagon as fast as she dared.
She circled building serving as the KGB assassin’s perch and pulled the car to a stop at a curbside spot a block and a half away from the wooden platform that had been erected for Reagan’s speech. The president was to dedicate a brand-new, twenty-story office building in celebration of the renewal of the American entrepreneurial spirit.
The crowd seemed to be thickening as Tracie parked the car and she said, “I’ve really got to hustle. We lost too much damned time with that car accident. When I get out, you slide over and take the wheel. Wait for me, but be ready to take off at a moment’s notice. You’ll know if I’ve failed because all hell is going to break loose if I’m too late. People will be running everywhere, sirens will be blaring, and you’re going to see cops and plain-clothes agents come out of the woodwork.”
“You’re not going to fail,” he said.
She turned and fixed him with a hard look. “If that happens, wait five minutes. If I’m not back in five minutes, I won’t be coming back. Find your way to a police station and tell the cops everything.”
Shane returned her stare. His face was pale, with dark puffy circles under his eyes. He looked like hell and Tracie knew he must be suffering, but he didn’t show it. He nodded once. “Got it,” he said unconvincingly “But what are you going to do about the letter?”
Tracie hesitated. She had been giving the issue some thought herself. “I’m keeping it with me,” she said. “It’s my responsibility to deliver this thing to the president, and by God, that’s what I’m going to do. If things go south and I get killed, I doubt the sniper will have the time or the presence of mind to search my body before escaping, so the authorities will eventually find it, anyway.”
Shane said nothing, holding her in his steady gaze until she began to feel self-conscious. “What?” she finally said.
“Nothing.” He swiveled his head and looked out the passenger-side window, then raised his hand and held it to his forehead for just a moment.
“Listen,” she said hesitantly. “I need to know you’re going to be here when this is all over.” Her stomach felt queasy from the familiar adrenaline effect she always experienced just before going operational. She suspected the mission wasn’t the only thing causing those butterflies. She felt exactly as she had as a teenage girl before her first date. The feeling was wonderful and horrible at the same time.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he answered. “This car will be right in this spot when you get back. You don’t have to worry about that.” She reached for his hand and he picked it up and squeezed it.
She squeezed back, hard. “I…I’ve never said this before, not to anyone other than my mom and dad,” she said. “I’m not sure I even know how to do it. Um, I think, I uh…”
“I know,” he said. “I love you, too. I have from the minute you introduced yourself by sticking a gun in my face.”
She hugged him fiercely, then stepped out of the car and began walking briskly toward the Minuteman Insurance building.
Shane squinted and watched her go. The sun streaming through the dirty passenger-side window ratcheted up the pain in his already pounding head, but it was worth it. Tracie looked fantastic in her new suit, and he tracked her with his eyes until she disappeared in the crowd.
He waited thirty seconds, then shut down the car and placed the key on the driver’s side floor. It would be out of sight to anyone passing by unless they stopped at the window and examined the interior. He stepped out of the car and closed the door, leaving the vehicle unlocked. He couldn’t take the chance of her returning, needing to access the car and finding it locked, especially since he was supposed to be sitting here, ready to leave. Hopefully any potential car thieves would be reluctant to ply their trade, given the police and Secret Service presence in the area.
Shane stepped onto the sidewalk and followed in Tracie’s footsteps. He had no real strategy in mind other than to trail behind and try to help her if he could. He knew he was being foolish, knew his presence on the scene would likely cause more problems for her than it would solve, but the thought of the beautiful young woman he had pulled from the burning wreckage of a plane just a couple of nights ago — the woman he had fallen deeply, hopelessly in love with — taking on a professional KGB assassin with no backup and only the vaguest sense of a plan herself was unthinkable.
Who was to say there was only one man perched up on that roof waiting to put a bullet through Ronald Reagan’s heart? Shane was no expert on covert operations, but he had read enough spy novels to know that military sniper units often consisted of two men — one to pull the trigger, and one to calculate wind direction, velocity, and distances, and to act as a spotter. Maybe that wasn’t how the Russians were going to do it, but if it was, Shane doubted Tracie would ever get close enough to the shooter to take him down.
So he followed, struggling to keep up.
He was far enough behind Tracie that she wouldn’t see him unless she backtracked or stopped and turned around for some reason. Neither action seemed likely because they were almost out of time. The President’s appearance was scheduled for ten o’clock and it was now after nine forty-five.
Shane picked up his pace. He felt light-headed and shaky, his headache blasting like a jackhammer inside his head. The Minuteman Insurance building was still a little more than halfway down the block. He wanted to break into a run but didn’t dare. If the cops saw a young man sprinting toward the location where the president would be speaking in just a few minutes, he would likely be rewarded with a bullet in the back.
The ironic thing was that Shane didn’t even care that much about getting shot, but he wouldn’t be any help to Tracie lying dead on the sidewalk, although the thought ran through his mind that if that scenario were to take place, the president’s appearance would certainly be cancelled and at least the leader of the free world would still be alive. He had to trust Tracie, though. She was a pro and she knew what she was doing. He chanted it as a mantra as he went.
He hustled along Columbia Road, moving as fast as he dared, feeling time slipping away. Finally he reached the wide marble steps leading to the Minuteman Building’s front entrance and hustled up them two at a time. He looked for Tracie but she was nowhere to be seen. He dodged a cluster of men in suits and overcoats moving in the other direction, pushed open the door and stepped into the building.
46