“Thank you, sir,” Heather said, beaming.
“I won’t need makeup, will I?”
“No, sir, you look fine,” she said.
“Because you know what Hitchcock used to say, don’t you? Alfred Hitchcock, the film director?”
“No, sir, I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“He used to say, ‘How can anyone respect a man who makes his living wearing makeup?’”
“Yes, sir.”
“He was referring to actors. He hated actors.”
“Yes, sir,” Heather said.
Some of her best friends were actors.
“Hello, John!” Bush shouted, changing the subject, and raising his arm in greeting to the brigadier general who would be leading the band. “Got some nice tunes for us today?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Did a good job with the podium, too,” he said, turning back to Heather, his Secret Service contingent turning with him as if they were all joined at the hip. Four men from the personal White House security platoon, two on each side of him, eyeballing the reporters and the other security people, checking the landscape for anything that looked even remotely alien. Dobbs walked over, introduced himself to the Secret Service man in charge. The two had a whispered conversation, Dobbs nodding in Elita’s direction, the White House man looking her over and nodding in puzzled understanding. As he understood it, the blonde was here to finger some Libyan hit man out to get the President. Which seemed about as likely as a Bengal tiger leaping out of the East River. The White House man nodded uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh, clearly unconvinced.
From behind the podium, Bush said, “Do we really need this thing?”
“Open water out there, Mr. President,” Heather said.
“I hate these darn things.”
A network woman wearing earphones and cradling a clipboard said, “Four minutes, Heather.”
“Can’t we get rid of it?” Bush said.
“Not without messing up all the bunting, sir,” Heather said.
“Mr. President, could we get a voice level, please?” one of the technicians said.
“Hello, Gabe,” Bush said, calling to a reporter he recognized.
“If you’ll just give me a ten-count, sir...”
“One, two, three, four...”
“Can we move that number-two camera a bit to the left?”
“Watch those cables, Harry.”
“Bit more, Mr. President.”
“Seven, eight...”
“Two minutes, Heather.”
“That’s good, sir, thank you.”
“Didn’t think I could count to ten, did you?” Bush quipped, and grinned.
A network person wearing earphones held up his hand, said, “Quiet, people,” and then turned toward the podium and said, “Ready, Mr. President?” Standing behind the battery of microphones, Bush cleared his throat and nodded. There were four television cameras between him and the water beyond. The security people were spaced in a semi-circle behind the cameras, facing not the President but the possible approaches to him from any given compass point. Only Dobbs stood apart with Elita, farther back from the others, where they commanded a wider view of the President and the statue behind him.
“Stand by, please,” the man with the earphones said.
“Thirty seconds,” the woman with the clipboard said.
Everyone fell silent.
There was not a breeze stirring.
Out on the water, even the Coast Guard boat had cut its engine and was drifting idly, soundlessly.
“Ten,” the woman said. “Nine... eight... seven... six...”
The man with the earphones held up his right hand for the President to see. Ticking them off on his fingers, he began counting the seconds to airtime...
“... five, four, three, two, one...”
“Good afternoon, my fellow Americans...”
He turned off the Walkman the moment he heard Bush’s salutation, yanked the earpiece from his ear, and dropped radio and cable on the floor beside Rhodes’s body. Picking up the camera bag and the black hat, he came out of the supply closet, and pushed at the door, closing it firmly behind him, satisfied when he heard the latch clicking into the strike plate. He did not want anyone opening that door, not with Rhodes’s body in there, not until he had done what he was here to do.
He went into one of the stalls, lifted the lid on the toilet tank, dropped the black hat into it, and replaced the lid. He dropped the camera bag into the restroom trash basket.
Boldly, he stepped into the corridor.
The FBI tag clipped to his lapel identified him as Frank Mercer.
But he knew who he was.
He was Sonny Hemkar, and he was stepping forward to meet his destiny.
“... on this Fourth of July, a day we call glorious — not only because it is a glorious day here in New York — but because this day marks a day of glory for us and for the world, the day upon which freedom was born. Freedom,” Bush said, and paused. “Well now,” he said folksily, “that’s a word we sometimes take for granted nowadays, especially since dramatic changes all over the world have brought freedom to peoples everywhere. But I can tell you, it’s a word which wasn’t so darned familiar back then when the founding fathers thought of it. Back then, it was a new concept for these brave men to declare themselves free and independent and forge for themselves, and for all mankind to follow, a constitution that has survived the centuries, a document that has served as a model of inspiration for democratic nations everywhere. It was a good idea then, and it’s still a good idea. And I’m here on this glorious — yes, glorious — day of celebration to tell you that America will continue to be the brightest star in a firmament of emerging democracies.”
He paused for merely an instant.
Soberly, dramatically, he gazed into the whirring cameras.
Here it comes, Dobbs thought.
“Four years ago, I promised the people of America a thousand points of light. Well, four years later, we’re living in a nation where none need go hungry and none need go poor, a nation of healthy, educated, employed, hard-working, proud and patriotic people who can achieve whatever their minds can conceive, who can aspire to whatever their souls...”
God, what bullshit, Dobbs thought, and turned his attention to Elita.
She wasn’t watching Bush.
Her eyes were darting everywhere.
The President was already three minutes into his speech.
He took the steps up swiftly, the walkie-talkie in his right hand, quite official-looking in the event anyone stopped him, ten steps to each of the two flights, past the non-functioning telephone exhibit, and up the two shorter flights of steps leading to the star-shaped Fort Hood level.
No one in sight yet.
The three bronze-framed plate glass doors just ahead of him.
Deadbolts on all of—
He hadn’t once thought—
God, don’t let them be locked!
He shoved out at the middle door. It yielded to his hand. He caught his breath, came out into daylight. Stopped dead. Looked left and right. No one. His right hand went into his inside pocket, over his heart. His fingers closed on the bottle of sarin. Breathing hard, he lifted the bottle from his pocket, and turned the nozzle to the STREAM position. He hesitated a second longer, then walked swiftly to the steps leading to the level above. When he got up there, he would crouch down below the chest-high wall that enclosed it, and then work his way to a position directly above the President. The Statue of Liberty would be facing both of them; she would witness it all. He had practiced it a hundred times. Before anyone below knew what was happening, the President would be doused with a shower of poison that would kill him within minutes.