"Time for straight talk, pal," Remo told the man on the roof.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Secret Service. The jig's up."
"You idiot, I'm Secret Service, too!"
"Nice try. But I don't buy it."
"Check my wallet if you don't believe me."
Remo set one foot on the man's chest, emptying his lungs of air with two quick pumping motions of his leg. The man made a bellows sound, then turned green and glassy eyed.
Remo pulled the wallet, and it fell open, revealing a gold Secret Service badge.
"What the hell were you doing up here with a rifle?" Remo demanded, removing his foot from the man's chest and tossing the wallet on his breastbone.
"I'm a countersniper, damn it. You should know that."
"I'm new at this."
Remo hauled the Secret Service agent to his feet.
"The director thought it would be a good idea to place a man up here in case there was more trouble. I can take out any subject trespassing the White House grounds from up here."
"Makes sense." Remo grunted. "Countersniper, huh?"
"That's right. What are you?"
"Me," said Remo. "I guess you could say I'm a counterassassin. "
"Never heard that designation."
Remo grunted. "It's new. I'm the prototype. Sorry about the rifle."
The Secret Service countersniper looked down at his disintegrated weapon and blurted, "What'd you do to it?"
"I countered it," said Remo.
When the agent looked up, he saw that he was alone on the roof.
Ten minutes later Remo was back in the White House grounds, whistling "Deck the Halls." He felt good about himself again. He just hoped the feeling would last.
Chapter 25
In her office at ANC News Washington headquarters, Pepsie Dobbins was reviewing video of the past twenty-four hours of the network's Presidential coverage.
There was a lot of it. Virtually every step of the President's travels from the White House to the JFK Library in Boston was covered in excruciatingly boring detail. And that was only ANC footage.
The reason was simple. Ever since Dallas, the networks were determined to capture the next Presidential assassination on tape or film. One confiscable Zapruder film was enough. So whenever the President traveled, the press filmed every mile and rest stop. It was called "the body watch."
Thus, Pepsie had a virtually unbroken chain of film up until the chaos at the JFK Library, after which the press had become the frightened tail of a very desperate comet, and all footage after that consisted of white-faced reporters asking breathless questions of off-camera anchors and vice versa.
A full morning of reviewing footage revealed nothing significant.
"So why does the Director want footage?" she muttered to herself.
Buck Featherstone poked his head into the office and whispered, "There's some guy named Smith here wanting to see those tapes you're looking at."
"Did you say Smith?"
"I did."
"Did he say who he was with?"
"He flashed a Secret Service badge."
Pepsie frowned. "Probably not that Smith."
"Couldn't hurt to ask. He's coming this way."
Pepsie grabbed her minicassette recorder off her desk, thumbed the Record button and dropped it into a desk drawer, which she did not close.
A gaunt-faced man with white hair stepped in and said, "Ms. Dobbins?"
"Of course," said Pepsie, wondering what kind of a stiff wouldn't recognize her famous face.
"Smith. Secret Service."
"I never reveal my sours, so you can forget it," Pepsie snapped. "My lips are sealed."
"I am here to review the tapes of yesterday's Presidential coverage," Smith said stiffly. "Your news director has given his permission."
"Oh," said Pepsie, sounding vaguely disappointed.
"I would like privacy."
"Then you're going to have to wait until I'm through."
"This is a national-security matter. I must ask you to leave."
"Suit Yourself," said Pepsie, half closing the drawer and exiting the room. "Feel free to use the telephone if you need to."
"Thank you," said Smith, dropping his lanky frame into Pepsie's chair.
Harold Smith frowned at the stack of half-inch videocassettes. It was criminal how much tape the networks consumed and wasted on trivia. Examining the labels, he sorted the death-watch footage from those of the assassination attempt itself.
Smith popped the tape marked JFK Shooting into the deck, his mouth thinning over the irony of the label.
The footage was raw and unedited. Of course, only the gruesome head shot had been aired, which was the main reason Smith had been making the rounds of the networks all morning. Perhaps some clue could be gleaned from the unaired tape stock.
Smith watched the decoy Secret Service agent step out of the Presidential limousine six times before he spotted something strange in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.
Rewinding the tape, he hit the Pause button. Instantly the picture froze, wiggling in the middle as if the tape stubbornly resented being freeze-framed.
The corner remained perfectly clear.
Smith saw a man with a Minicam. He wore aviator sunglasses, jeans and a red-checker work shirt. The camera caught him as he was taping the Presidential car door opening. But as the door came open, abruptly he turned his camera away and seemed to be shooting something high and to the west.
Smith hit Pause. The tape resumed. Immediately the crack of the rifle shot came, and the unfortunate Secret Service agent's head came apart.
The cameraman instantly swung his camera toward the Secret Service agent lying facedown in a pudding of his own blood and brain matter. Pandemonium broke out, and the agent was hauled into the Presidential limousine. The cameraman was quickly lost in the bedlam that followed.
From his coat, Smith drew a diagram of the University of Massachusetts campus and Kennedy Library complex and fixed the spot where the cameraman had been standing when the fatal rifle shot came. He traced the camera angle with a bony finger.
There was no mistaking it. The man with the camera had swung around to film the sniper's nest atop the Science Center a full four seconds before the first and only shot came. He had foreknowledge of the attempt. His cue had been the opening of the limousine door. There was no other possible explanation for his unprofessional actions.
Smith rewound the tape and hit the Pause button again. He advanced the footage frame by frame. At no point did the man's face show clearly. What could be seen was heavy beard stubble on cheeks that looked as plump as a chipmunk's mouth pouches. Beneath an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap, impenetrable Ray-Ban sunglasses covered his eyes. He could be anyone.
"Why would someone film an assassination in which he is a co-conspirator?" Smith muttered.
There seemed no logical answer, so Smith ejected the tape and returned it to its black plastic case.
Exiting the office, he told a loitering Pepsie Dobbins, "I am confiscating this tape."
"Which one?" asked Pepsie.
"National security forbids me from answering, but here is a receipt."
Pepsie accepted the receipt and said, "Good luck."
Smith said nothing as he left the building.
After he was gone, Pepsie hissed, "Did you get him?"
"Yeah," said Buck Featherstone, popping up from behind a row of steel file cabinets. "I shot through the crack between these files. Hope he comes out okay."
"Let's see what my tape recorder tells us."
Pepsie listened to her minicassette recorder play back the sound of Smith popping videotapes in and out of the office deck.
"He keeps watching the footage just before that Secret Service guy gets nailed," Buck muttered as they listened.
Then came Smith's lemony mutter.
"Why would someone film an assassination in which he is a co-conspirator?"