Now, Freddie thought about those relationships. What did Rawls have to gain from them? Well, from Joe Adams, nothing. Adams was out of Rawls’s reach, now, both politically and medically. Joe Adams might well not even remember who Rawls was. Will Lee, on the other hand, might be very useful indeed to Rawls. If Lee were elected president, a pardon of Rawls, his wife’s old friend, would be within his gift. So, Freddie reasoned, Rawls had every reason to protect Will Lee.
Freddie made his decision, and it was not a hard one. He switched on his computer, typed a short letter, printed it, and sealed it in an envelope. On the envelope, he wrote the name “Jonah,” then sealed it. Taking care not to leave a fingerprint on either letter or envelope, he dropped them into another, larger envelope. Consulting a large, computer-generated address book, he addressed the larger envelope to the captain of the guard at home, then he made a call to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.
When the man came on the line, Freddie, without mentioning his name, made sure the captain knew who was calling, then he made his request. The captain gladly granted the favor. Freddie hung up, feeling smug and safe once again.
Two days later, Ed Rawls was stopped by a guard as he left the dining hall after breakfast, on the way to his job in the prison library. The guard escorted him on rather a long walk, down a stairway two levels underground and down a hallway Rawls had thought disused. The guard stopped before a steel door, unlocked and opened it. It swung on rusty, noisy hinges.
“What’s going on?” Rawls asked.
The guard took an envelope from his pocket. “Open it and read what’s inside,” he said.
Rawls took the envelope, opened it, and unfolded the single sheet of paper.
Jonah,
You have made a serious miscalculation, and you are now about to suffer for it. Further, should any word of what you claim to know ever become public knowledge by any means whatever during my lifetime, I will see that you spend the rest of your life in prison, without hope of parole or pardon, and every day of it in the place you are about to enter. Don’t ever come to my attention again.
Rawls looked at the guard. “What the hell?” he said.
“See you in a week, Ed,” the guard said. He took the letter back, spun Rawls around, pushed him through the door, slammed it behind him, and locked it.
Ed Rawls had just time to see that he had been thrown into a concrete room barely large enough to lie down in, and furnished only with a single water tap in a corner over a hole in the floor. Then the door was shut, and he stood in the dark, wondering how this could have happened.
33
Zeke checked out of his room at La Fonda around four in the afternoon. He allowed a bellman to carry his luggage to his car, then tipped the man, who went back into the hotel. Zeke waited a minute, then walked out of the parking lot and down the street toward the Plaza.
Signs posted in shop windows gave the time of the rally as six o’clock, giving him plenty of time to size up the job. Near the center of the park in the Plaza, workmen were completing a wooden platform, which rose about four feet from the ground. Zeke walked around behind the platform and looked back toward La Fonda. Good; a perfect line of sight to the northwest corner of the hotel’s roof. He walked back to the hotel.
In the garage, he removed the briefcase from the trunk of the car, then dug out the silencer from under the spare tire and placed it in the briefcase with the rifle. He walked back into the hotel and turned left toward the elevator that went to the roof. He pressed the button for the top floor and rode up alone. He stepped out into the rooftop bar, which was deserted, since it didn’t open until six, then went directly to the trellis. He looped the briefcase’s strap over his shoulder and began climbing. Shortly, he was on the roof. He walked around the perimeter of the building, examining each side for escape routes. The way he had come would be best, of course, but after six, he might be seen by someone in the rooftop restaurant. On the south side, however, was a cast-iron drainpipe running straight to the ground, ending behind an adobe wall. He remembered that the garage had a window on that side of the building.
Satisfied, he walked to the northwest corner of the building and, staying low, peered over the parapet. Perfect. He had a full view of the wooden platform in the center of the Plaza park. Zeke glanced at his watch, then sat down, leaned against the parapet, took a paperback novel from his pocket, and began to read.
Will was awakened at five o’clock by Kitty Conroy, in his suite at the Eldorado Hotel. They had landed in Santa Fe earlier in the afternoon, and after half a dozen brief meetings with local Democratic supporters and a couple of media interviews, he had had time for a nap. He was groggy, though, and he attributed the way he felt to altitude sickness. After all, Santa Fe was seven thousand feet above sea level, and that took some getting used to.
Will showered, freshened his shave, and got into a freshly pressed pair of jeans and some borrowed cowboy boots. He agreed to a suede jacket, but declined the offer of the wide-brimmed hat. Photographs in odd hats came back to haunt you.
“We’re going to walk up to the Plaza,” Kitty said. “It’s only a couple of blocks from the hotel, and you can shake a lot of hands on the way.”
Will’s right hand had toughened up a lot over the past few months; you had to get in shape for campaigning. Together with Kitty, he started for the elevator, accompanied by two Secret Service agents.
A mariachi band was playing in the Plaza, and Zeke put away his book and peered over the parapet. There was a thickening of the crowd at the northwest corner of the Plaza park; Will Lee was walking toward the platform, shaking hands.
Zeke quickly assembled the rifle, screwing the silencer onto the end of the barrel. Then he took the fat telescopic sight from the case and, peering through it, looked down at the Plaza. He could see Lee clearly and up close. Except for some glare from the setting sun to the west, it was an excellent setup. He’d wait until Lee mounted the platform and faced the crowd to speak; then he’d go for a head shot. Then he saw something he hadn’t expected.
There was a box of security around Will Lee, and at each corner was a man in a suit. What Zeke had not expected was that each of the four men wore an identical metal button in the lapel of his suit. What the hell was the Secret Service doing here? Lee hadn’t even been nominated yet. As he thought about this, he concentrated his gaze on the lead agent, and he saw the man suddenly squint, as some sort of light swept across his face. Then the man looked up and directly at Zeke, alarm on his face. He pointed at the northwest corner of La Fonda.
Zeke realized that the setting sun had been reflected into the man’s eyes by his telescopic sight. The man continued to look at Zeke, and he raised a fist to his lips, and said something into a microphone hidden in his cupped hand.
Christ! Zeke started breaking down the rifle and packing it into the briefcase. He’d never have climbed onto this rooftop if he’d known the Secret Service was in town. He was lucky there wasn’t an agent in his lap right now. They would have checked the rooftops earlier that day.