Andy Kim stood up and shook hands with Howard, but avoided his eyes. Howard sensed that he was embarrassed and that things weren’t going well. “You two look like you could do with a good night’s sleep,” said Howard.
Bonnie squeezed her husband’s shoulders. “He hasn’t slept for three days,” she said.
“I must be doing something wrong,” Andy hissed, his eyes on the screen. “I must be missing something.”
Howard wasn’t sure what to say. The news that the snipers were planning to make their move within the next two weeks had clearly shaken Andy, but Howard didn’t want to appear condescending by telling him not to worry.
“We’re going back to square one,” Bonnie explained. “We’re checking all the angles and distances in the model first, then we’re going to check all the venues from today onwards.”
“But I’m sure we did it right the first time,” said Andy.
“Andy, you’ve got to remember that it might not be the President who’s the target. You could be doing everything right and still not get a match. Have you tried any of the other possibilities? The Prince of Wales, for instance, or the British Prime Minister?”
Andy looked up. “They didn’t match either, but I’m sure it’s the President they’re after,” he said. “I can feel it. And if they succeed, it’ll be my fault. I couldn’t live with that, Cole. I really couldn’t.”
Bonnie smiled nervously at Howard as if apologising for his touchiness. “What will you be doing, Cole?” she asked.
“We’ve a lead on the snipers and the people who are helping them,” he said. “The Bureau and the Secret Service are working together to try to find them.”
“What are your chances?” asked Andy sharply.
Howard shrugged. “I’m hopeful,” he said.
“What sort of odds?” Andy pressed.
Howard smiled tightly. “I dunno, Andy. You can’t treat an investigation like an equation. There’re so many influences, not the least being luck. We could literally stumble over them, they could get pulled in for speeding or one of our men could walk right by them. I can’t give you odds.”
A computer printout was lying by the side of the visual display unit and Howard picked it up. “It’s a list of the President’s appointments for the next two weeks,” Bonnie explained.
Howard flicked through it. Most were on the East Coast, though there was a two-day trip to Los Angeles and visits to Dallas and Chicago. “Dallas,” he mused, loud enough for the Kims to hear.
“I thought we were concentrating on the East Coast?” said Bonnie.
“Sorry, I was just thinking out loud,” said Howard. “It’s hard not to think of Dallas when you think of a presidential assassination. But the evidence we have points to it being on the East Coast.” He continued to read through the printout. The President was a busy man, no doubt about it, with up to twenty visits a day: breakfast meetings, lunchtime speeches, opening ceremonies, tours of factories, fund-raising activities, sports events. Howard wondered when the man actually found time to run the country. “I hadn’t realised he moved around so much,” he said. “I guess we always think of the President as sitting in the Oval Office.”
“Yeah, I wish that was true,” said Andy Kim. “But it’s worse than that printout suggests.” He ran his hand through his mop of black hair. “It’s not just one program per visit. Say he’s being shown around a factory. He could visit a dozen different sites, plus travelling to and from it, and we have to rerun the program for each of them. Say he walks a hundred feet from a car to the entrance of a hotel. We have to pick points every ten feet and run them through the program. That’s ten operations for one walk. Every time he gets into or out of a limo we have to put that through the model. You wouldn’t believe how complex it is.”
“But it’s going to be okay,” said Bonnie, sympathetically.
“I hope so,” said Andy Kim.
The office door opened and a man in running gear stepped inside. He was wearing grey shorts, scuffed training shoes and a white sweatshirt which was damp with sweat, and he was breathing heavily. Andy Kim looked around at the visitor, then turned back to his computer. The jogging gear was so unexpected that it took Howard several seconds to recognise the face of the President of the United States.
“Hi, you guys, I thought I’d just stop by and see how you’re getting on with this computer model thing,” he said. The mid-Western drawl was instantly recognisable from thousands of sound-bites on television news, and Andy’s head whirled around in an astonished double-take. His mouth dropped and his hands slid off the computer keyboard. Bonnie was equally stunned.
The President closed the door and walked over to the Kims. A small towel was hanging around his neck and he used it to wipe his forehead. “Bob Sanger expects great things from this,” he said. He stuck out his hand and Andy Kim stared at it as if it was a loaded gun. It was only when Bonnie pushed his shoulders that he stood up and shook the President’s hand. “I’m Andy Kim,” he said, his voice trembling. Bonnie nudged his shoulder again. “Oh, and this is my wife, Bonnie.”
Bonnie shook his hand. “Agent Bonnie Kim, of the FBI,” she said, lest the President assumed she was just there for moral support.
“Pleased to meetchya, Bonnie,” said the President. He turned to Howard. “You’re Cole Howard, from Phoenix?” he said. Howard nodded and received the same warm handshake, a firm grip which went beyond the normal presidential hand-holding where hundreds of the faithful had to have the flesh pressed in as short a time as possible. The President’s handshake suggested that the man was truly glad to have made Howard’s acquaintance. “Bob told me about that Star Trek thing. Awesome detective work, Cole. Awesome.” He bent down and stared intently at the computer screen. The President looked leaner than he did on television, and his hair seemed darker. Howard recalled the rumours that he’d dyed his hair grey during the presidential campaign to give himself a more mature image, and he caught himself looking for dark roots. “So, Andy, why don’t you show me what this machine can do?” the President asked.
Nervously at first, but with increasing confidence, Andy Kim showed the President how his computer model worked, calling up several upcoming venues and superimposing the three sniping positions on top of them. The President asked pertinent questions demonstrating considerable familiarity with computer systems and Andy was soon talking to him as an equal.
Eventually the President straightened up and arched his back as if it was troubling him. “I tell you, Andy, I’m really impressed with this. It’s really important that we show these terrorists that they can’t push us around. We can’t allow them to dictate to us in any way. Saddam tried it in Kuwait, and we showed him the error of his ways. We’re going to show them that they can’t scare the President of the United States.”
“You don’t plan to change your schedule at all, sir?” Howard asked.
The President looked Howard straight in the eye. “Not one iota,” he said. “If I give any sign of being afraid, they’ll have won. You cannot show weakness to people like Saddam Hussein. If I hid inside the White House every time I was threatened. . well. . I’d never leave, would I?”
“I guess not, sir,” agreed Howard, though he doubted that the President had ever faced a threat like the one posed by Carlos the Jackal and the Irish Republican Army.
The President smiled. “Well, guys, I’ve got to go, but I want you to know that I think you’re doing one hell of a job. One hell of a job.” He wiped his face with the towel as he left the office.
Andy Kim looked at his wife as if unable to believe what he’d seen. She nodded silently. Howard rubbed the back of his neck. The President seemed totally unfazed by the fact that some of the world’s deadliest terrorists were trying to get him in the sights of their rifles.
Carlos and Mary Hennessy walked together down the sloping lawn, towards the grey-blue waters of the Chesapeake Bay. The sky above was clear and blue and a fresh breeze blew from the east, ruffling their hair and carrying with it the tang of salt.