Inside the cafeteria, there were hospital staff and visitors with food in front of them, but they mostly weren’t eating. Rather, they were talking in low tones about what had happened. She saw one man comforting a woman who was sobbing softly, and another man with his head down on the table in front of him; he seemed to be crying, too.
The first couple of people Susan asked didn’t know Dr. Lucius Jono, but the third person, a woman with eyes wide open as if still half in shock, did, and she pointed to a compact man with wild red hair sitting with three other men; they were all wearing white hospital smocks. Just as Singh had said, a discarded half of a bacon cheeseburger and most of an order of onion rings were still on a plate on the brown tray in front of Jono.
“Dr. Lucius Jono?” Susan said as she came up to the table. She pulled out her ID. “Susan Dawson, Secret Service. Might I have a word with you in private?”
Jono lifted his eyebrows—he really should trim those things, Susan thought; they looked like orange caterpillars that had been given electroshock therapy. He crammed one final onion ring into his mouth, excused himself from his colleagues, and stood. “What’s up?”
“This way, please,” Susan said. She led him across the wide lobby, past the security guard, and into the hospital. They took the elevator up to the third floor. Susan had decided to co-opt Professor Singh’s office for her use—after all, crazy as it seemed, it was intimately familiar to her; she knew, for instance, where to find the paper clips if she needed one. When they got there, she sat behind the kidney-shaped desk and motioned for Jono to take the other chair.
Susan hesitated, not quite sure how to pose the insane questions she needed to ask. Finally, she simply dove in. “Something odd is going on here at the hospital involving memories, and—”
“You mean it’s not just me?” asked Jono, looking relieved.
“It’s not,” said Susan. “Tell me about what you’ve experienced.”
“It’s like—God, it’s like I know all sorts of things I shouldn’t know, like, um—where do you live?”
Susan was startled by the question, but answered it. “Kenilworth.”
“Interesting neighborhood,” he said at once. “Average house price this past quarter was $223,000. Some wonderful old homes, although they tend not to have enough bathrooms—but I know a couple of excellent fixer-uppers.”
“What are you talking about?” Susan said.
“Real estate,” said Jono. “It’s like I suddenly know all about real estate. And I’ve never known anything about that. I moved here five years ago, after having a long-distance relationship with the woman I live with now; she already had a house here. I’ve never bought a home in this part of the world, but I know all the districts, average selling prices, and so on, not to mention a whole bunch of techniques for closing a deal.”
“What do you know about the president of the United States?” Susan asked.
“Medically?” said Jono. “Tons now, of course. He’s in good shape internally for a man his age.”
“No, I mean about him personally.”
“What everyone knows, I suppose. Came out of nowhere to win the Republican nomination. Likes sports fishing. And so on.”
“Nothing more intimate?”
“I’m not sure what you’re getting at.”
“Do you know, for instance, his wife’s birthday?”
“The First Lady’s? Haven’t a clue.”
“Or maybe the name of his high school?”
“No.”
Susan nodded. “Okay. Tell me: how do you think you came by all this information about real estate?”
“I haven’t stopped to think about it. I really haven’t had many quiet moments since the surgery on Jerrison. But…”
“But?”
“Well, there’s this woman I know…”
“Yes?”
“I know her. I know all about her, but I don’t know her.” Jono’s freckled face conveyed that he was aware he wasn’t making sense. “I mean, I seem to know her, but I’m sure I’ve never met her. A real-estate agent.”
“Her name?”
“Nikki Van Hausen,” said Jono. “Well, Nicola, but she goes by Nikki. N-I-double-K-I.”
“And she’s here at the hospital? A patient?”
“Not a patient. Oh! Well, not originally, anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was here to visit her brother, but they’ve locked her up.”
“Where?”
“The psychiatric ward.”
“Where’s that?”
He told her, and she headed toward it. As she approached the main door to it from one direction, a thin, bald man wearing a doctor’s smock arrived there from another. Susan was always absorbing everything around her and habitually read name badges; this fellow’s said, “E. Redekop, M.D.” She hadn’t recognized his face—because, she suddenly realized, she hadn’t yet seen it, except for the eyes, and those only from a distance.
“You’re Eric Redekop.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Not again!”
“Pardon?”
“Sorry. It’s just that you’re the second person today to recognize me that I don’t know.”
“Actually,” said Susan, “I just read your badge—and Dr. Griffin had told me your first name. I’m Susan Dawson, the Secret Service agent-in-charge here. I watched you save the president today.” She paused, trying to think of what else to say, but couldn’t come up with anything better than, “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” said Redekop, looking a bit relieved.
Susan’s job was all about noticing things that were out of place. “What’s a surgeon doing in the psychiatric ward?”
Redekop’s handsome face was still for a few moments, as if he was thinking about what—or how much—to say. Finally, he lifted his narrow shoulders a bit. “Well, it’s like I said. Someone recognized me earlier, but I didn’t know her. She seemed quite upset.”
“Let me guess,” said Susan. “Nikki Van Hausen, right?”
Redekop looked astonished. “I don’t know her last name, but, yes, her first name is Nikki.”
“Come with me.”
Secret Service agent Dirk Jenks slipped away from the crowd of fellow agents swarming the interior of the Lincoln Memorial. He headed down the wide marble stairs and then went around to the back. Only three thousand people had come out on this cold morning to hear Jerrison’s speech, but now that he’d been shot, many thousands more were swarming onto this part of the Mall, hoping to see the site of the assassination attempt—and an even greater number were scurrying to see the ruins of the White House: lemmings rushing headlong into dust and nothingness, into the end of history.
Jenks briskly walked the hundred-odd yards to the nearest road and caught a cab that had just disgorged two people. He told the driver to take him to Reagan National Airport, four miles away in Virginia.
“Hey,” said the driver, “were you here earlier? Did you see the guy take a shot at Jerrison?”
“No.”
“What about the White House? Did you see that go up? Jesus!”
Jenks shook his head, and, mercifully, the driver shut up. Traffic was almost at a standstill—the journey was going to take forever. Jenks glanced anxiously out the car’s right side and saw the Jefferson Memorial for what he imagined would be the last time.