"What took you so long?" he asked.
"Traffic. Is that you?"
"Sit. Not too close. Don't look at me. Look toward Lincoln."
Keeping her eyes averted, Pepsie sat in the middle of the bench. "Who are you?" she whispered.
"I could give you a phony name but I won't. Just call me Director X."
"You look like a homeless guy."
"I wear the rags I do to express my solidarity with the dispossessed of the earth, the homeless, the forgotten, the disenfranchised, the uninsured."
"Uninsured?"
"Did you bring the tapes?"
"In my handbag."
"Good. Set them on the bench beside you."
"First you have to tell me what this is all about."
"I already did."
"There's more to it than the medical-industrial establishment trying to kill the President."
"You found something?"
"On the shooting tape. A cameraman did something strange. He seemed to turn his camera on the sniper's nest before the shot rang out."
"Maybe he spotted the sniper."
"Not at that range. Not with all eyes on the President's car door opening. No one would be looking anywhere else except-"
"Except who?"
"The Secret Service," breathed Pepsie. "Oh, my God. The Secret Service. It's headed by a director."
"I am not the director of the Secret Service."
"But you told me before that the establishment is behind this. The Secret Service is part of the establishment."
"This is bigger than the Secret Service," said the soft voice. "It is bigger than the government itself."
Pepsie had been sitting with her head fixed in the direction of the Lincoln Memorial. But her eyes, with the geckolike faculty to move independently of one another, were busy. One went to a clump of bushes where Buck Featherstone was supposed to have concealed himself. He had an excellent angle on Pepsie and Director X sitting on the bench-if he didn't blow it.
Carefully Pepsie let her right eye drift sideways. The profile of the wino seated on the other end of the bench became clear. Pepsie's heart skipped a beat as she took in the heavy beard stubble on the man's plump cheeks. If those cheeks belonged to a woman, she decided, the woman belonged in a circus sideshow between Dog Boy and the Human Crab.
"How big is this?" she asked.
"This," the wino said, "is colossal."
"That's big."
"There's more to this than you can dream. It's a mystery wrapped inside a riddle inside an enigma. Behind it is something I will call RX."
"I'm a journalist. I'm interested in who-what-when-where-how and why."
"That's the real question, isn't it? Why. The how and the who is just scenery for the public. It keeps them guessing like some kind of parlour game. Why was Kennedy killed? Who benefited? Who had the power to cover it up?"
"Kennedy? We're talking about the President here. Not Robert."
"I was talking about Jack."
"What does Jack Kennedy's murder have to do with the attempt to kill this President?"
"Everything."
"Help me break this story, and I'll do anything you want."
"I want footage, all you can get. Especially of tonight."
"What's tonight?"
"The Christmas-tree lighting. The President will be making his first public appearance since Boston tonight. Be there. Film it all."
"Will something happen?"
"The fortes converging on this President will not rest until every player has found his mark and the full script has been acted out."
"Who wrote the script? The Secret Service? The CIA?"
"Like Caesar, he is surrounded by enemies but they have no face. Take the tapes out of your bag and leave them on the bench. Then go. I will be in touch."
Pepsie walked away with her spine feeling as cold and inflexible as a giant icicle.
She hailed a cab, which took her to her Georgetown town house.
Buck Featherstone showed up twenty-three minutes later with a happy look on his face.
"Did you get him on tape?"
"Yeah," he said. "But at that range, there's no sound."
Pepsie upended her bag on the coffee table. Out slid her minicassette recorder.
"I have the audio," she said.
"So, what did he tell you?"
"Let's play the video and audio at the same time. I have a hunch this may be the most important footage since the Zapruder film."
"Why do you say that?"
"I think Director X is involved in the conspiracy," Pepsie said thickly.
"What makes you say that?"
"He reminds me of that cameraman up in Boston."
Chapter 28
Orville Rollo Fletcher told the cab driver to let him off in front of Blair House, across the street from the White House. He pulled back the white fur on his scarlet cuff and checked his watch. Eight-ten. He prided himself on his punctuality. He had exactly five minutes to cross the street and present himself at the East Gate. He took a deep breath and tried to steady his quivering limbs. It was the most nervous he had been since he took Pamela Sue Hess to the high school prom back in 1967. It had been his first and only date. He didn't even get a good-night kiss.
Crossing against the traffic, Orville Rollo Fletcher shook off one of his black Santa mittens and dug his blue plastic inhaler from a voluminous coat pocket.
Nervously uncapping it, he brought the square plastic nozzle to his open mouth and pumped the cartridge once. A steroid jet moistened his drying tongue, and his nose and taste buds both quivered before the very unfamiliar taste and smell.
And through Orville Rollo Fletcher's eyes, the world began to change ....
WHEN THE WHITE HOUSE East Gate was opened, the Washington press corps stormed through it like lemmings seeking the sea. The uniformed Secret Service could hardly pass them through the gate fast enough.
Barred from entering, the White House press corps had chained themselves to the fence all along Pennsylvania Avenue in protest.
Up on the platform, the President of the United States looked at his watch while the First Lady fumed.
"Where's that damn Santa?" she said through tight teeth. "I need him to represent traditional Western Christian values."
"Watch your language. You never know how many shotgun mikes are out there pointed at us."
Beside them, the White House Christmas spruce loomed up stark and grim. No lights burned in the darkness created by dousing the protective floodlights on the White House facade and throughout the grounds, and the tree's trimmings were indistinguishable.
"I told that agency to have him here at eight sharp. The press is getting restless. They want to ask you a ton of questions."
The President turned to Secret Service Special Agent Vince Capezzi beside him and said, "When I light the tree, you alert Marine One. After I've spoken my piece, tell them to take off. That will give us enough time to get to the South Lawn and make a quick getaway."
"Yes, sir," said Capezzi.
On the other side of the podium, standing behind the Chief Executive and out of camera range, Remo Williams hovered worriedly, scanning the crowd, looking toward the high rooftops of the Treasury to the east and Executive Office Building to the west, where Secret Service countersnipers crouched behind their nightvision scopes.
It was the worst possible exposure for the President. But there was nothing anyone could say or do to convince the President not to go through with the ceremony. The only good thing about it was the fact that Marine One would pluck the President from the South Lawn and to the relative safety of Air Force One unannounced, and therefore before anyone could create a problem.
Once the President was back in Boston, there would be an entirely new headache, as far as Remo was concerned.