“Pit Crew Leader, this is Pit Crew Fifteen,” a voice squawked through his walkie-talkie. “Read you, Pit Crew Fifteen.”
“I think I may have something here.”
“Report your twenty.”
“Corner Chestnut and Seventh.”
“What have you got?”
“Suspicious party moving in the crowd.”
“Description.”
“Male. Tall and broad, very tall. Beige pants and worn leather vest. Black hair tied in ponytail.”
“What?”
“Pit Crew Leader, I believe he’s an Indian. I believe—”
“Come in, Pit Crew Fifteen. Fifteen, are you there?”
More silence filled the air, broken finally by Pit Crew Fifteen’s voice.
“I’m here, Pit Crew Leader, but subject isn’t.”
“Say again!”
“I lost the Indian, sir. He just isn’t there anymore.”
“Hold your position, Fifteen. I’m coming your way.”
Weetz did not raise his eyes to the helicopter when it soared over the Curtis Publishing Building. Instead he kept his head down and right eye pressed against the scope of his sniper’s rifle — Well, not really his rifle. Actually it belonged to the Secret Service sharpshooter now lying dead in the stairwell. The agent’s clothes had made a decent enough fit, and the rifle was fortunately one Weetz was well versed in using.
In spite of this, though, the problem was no two rifles fired exactly alike. From this distance, miscalculation by a micro-inch could send the shot hurtling hopelessly off course, and one shot was all he could realistically depend on. The tree cover in the courtyard was a bitch, but he had chosen a spot on the roof that allowed a clear vantage. Wind could pick up and fuck things up royally. Good thing the forecast was holding up so far. In fact, all his intelligence was holding up. He shifted his rifle slightly and sighted two feet over the podium.
The very spot the vice president’s head would be occupying in a matter of minutes.
Johnny knew he had been seen. He could feel the eyes burn into him as clearly as a blue laser piercing his skin. Instantly he dropped into a crouch and stayed there until he was certain the eyes had lost him.
The spirits had spoken, and Johnny knew why he had been guided here. There was going to be an attempt made on the vice president’s life. It was Wareagle’s fate to face the bullet fired by the enemy. His Hanbelachia was upon him. His enemy was in range. Johnny rose from a crouch to a stoop; reaching out, probing. Just as he had known it in the Amazon, he knew it now.
One of the Wakinyan was here!
He recognized the thing’s spiritual scent, but the precise take on it was denied him. Johnny felt the unfamiliar grasp of impatience. He distracted himself with thoughts of the area itself. Security was tight and very well orchestrated. Secret Service agents, like the one who had picked him out, were scattered in large numbers throughout the crowd and stationed on various rooftops. It was impossible for even the best sharpshooter to move about unseen. Unless, unless…
What would I do if the assassination was mine to accomplish?
The answer led him toward the tight crowds packed along Chestnut Street. His eyes swept across the buildings until they locked on a pair of brick structures rimmed at the top by white granite rails. He counted fifteen stories. A perfect number.
A strange calm possessed him then. The spirits were there guiding him, showing him the way.
To the twin brick buildings, one of which held the Wakinyan upon it.
“Seven-foot-tall Indians don’t ordinarily disappear,” an exasperated Arnold Triesman said to Pit Crew Fifteen at Seventh Street.
His subordinate looked dumbfounded. “Has anyone else reported seeing—”
“Not a thing!” Triesman cut him off. “No sign, no sighting.”
“I could have been wrong.”
“You don’t believe that, and neither do I.”
“Oh, he was there, all right, but I can’t honestly say he was dangerous. It was just that he…stood out. And it was more than the fact that he was so big, too. Something just didn’t feel right, chief.”
“Yeah,” acknowledged Triesman, walkie-talkie back in its accustomed spot near his lips. Triesman figured a few more like this and he’d wear a groove into his jaw. “Come in, Pit Crew One.”
“Read you, Pit Crew Leader.”
“How goes it back there?”
“Coming up on the route now. I can see the people. Nice crowd by the look of it.”
“I wish it had rained.”
“Ditto, chief.”
“Look, One, be ready for an immediate cover and evac from the area. Clear?”
“Sure, chief. What have you got?”
Arnold Triesman gazed at the befuddled agent by his side before responding. “A feeling, One. Just a feeling.”
Weetz watched the motorcade slide by along Chestnut Street, urging it to go faster. The crowds cheered and applauded, American flags waving everywhere. He wanted this to be done with. Normally it was unheard of for a man in his position to remain in the open for so long. The circumstances, in this case, had dictated his actions, but that didn’t make Weetz feel any the easier. He was even tempted to change the strategy, go for the shot while the target was stepping through the arch en route to the Independence Hall courtyard. Too much risk going for a moving target, though.
The motorcade moved to within a hundred yards of Independence Hall, and he returned his attention to the podium.
Johnny could feel eyes searching for him as he moved among the crowd, just precautionary and no more. He reached Sixth Street and prepared to veer left at Congress Hall toward the twin buildings. He could not get a fix on which one of them held the Wakinyan. Confused feelings rushed through him. Something was not as he expected it would be, but he could not let that throw him.
“Pit Crew Leader to entire Pit Crew,” said Triesman into his walkie-talkie. “Pit Crew Leader to entire Pit Crew. Racer’s car has come into the pit. Let’s look sharp.”
Ten yards before him, the vice president was stepping out of his limousine, which had stopped directly in front of the entrance to Independence Hall, the tumultuous cheers of the crowd reverberating in Triesman’s ears. God, how he hated moments like this. Twenty thousand people jammed into a city block — and all it took was one crazy with a gun. He met the vice president at the arch and glued himself to the man’s left side.
“I have Racer,” Triesman said into his walkie-talkie. “Keep your eyes open.”
Weetz’s vantage point on the Curtis Publishing Building precluded him viewing his target’s arrival. He saw the vice president for the first time when he stepped through the arch into the courtyard engulfed by a Secret Service detail. His audience rose from the steel chairs that had been arranged in neat fashion and applauded. Weetz eased his eye tighter against the sight and caressed the trigger.
He had the side of the vice president’s head locked in briefly, but there was no sense risking a shot yet. Not until he was stationary behind the podium.
“Come on,” he urged the vice president, “just a little further now.”