New York looked amazingly huge and imposing, capable of swallowing us whole. Anything can happen here, I was thinking, and I'm sure Don Hamerman and Jay Grayer were, too.
Bam!
Bam!
Bam!
The three of us jumped forward in the backseat of the town car. I had my hand on my gun, ready for almost anything, ready for Jack and Jill.
We all stared in horror at the President's car up ahead -- Stagecoach. There was total silence in our car.
Awful silence. Then we began to laugh.
The loud noises hadn't been gunshots. They just sounded like it. They were false alarms. But it was chilling all the same.
We had passed over worn and warped metal gratings on the ramp coming off the bridge. Everyone in our car had experienced an instant heart attack at the sudden and unexpected noise. Undoubtedly, the same thing had happened in the President's car.
"Jesus," Hamerman moaned loudly "That's what it would be like. Oh, God Almighty"
"I was there at the Washington Hilton when Hinckley shot Reagan and Brady," Jay Grayer said with a tremor in his voice.
I knew that he was back there once again, with Reagan and James Brady Experiencing a flashback, the kind no one wanted to have.
I wondered about Grayer's personal stake in this. I wondered about everybody on our team.
I watched the President's car as it swept down onto the crowded, brightly lit streets of New York City.
The American flags on the fenders were flapping wildly in the river breeze.
No regrets.
THE PHOTOJOURNALIST had arrived early on Monday, December 16, for his work in New York.
He had decided to drive from Washington. It was much safer that way. Now he walked along Park Avenue, where the presidential motorcade would travel tomorrow morning, only a few hours from now.
He was relaxing before the historic day, taking in the sights and sounds of New York City in the holiday season.
Kevin Hawkins had occasional flashes, mind photos of memorabilia he had studied on the JFK killing, the murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, even the badly botched shooting of Ronald Reagan.
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He knew one thing for certain: this particular assassination wouldn't be botched. This was a done deal.
There was no way out for Thomas Byrnes. No escape.
He was closing in on the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where he knew the President and his wife would be staying. It was typical for this president to go against the advice of his security advisors.
It fit his profile perfectly.
Don't listen to the experts. Fix what isn't broken. Arrogant fool, useless bastard. Traitor to the American people.
The night was cool and fine, the light rain having finally stopped. The air felt good against his skin. He was certain that he wasn't going to be spotted as Kevin Hawkins. He'd taken care of that. There were easily a couple of hundred NYPD uniforms around the hotel. It didn't matter. No one would recognize him now.
Not even his own mother and father.
The picturesque divided avenue outside the hotel was relatively crowded at this time of night. Some spectators had come in hopes of seeing the President shot. They didn't know when the President would be arriving, but they knew the likely hotels in midtown. The Waldorf was a good guess.
The local tabloids, and even the New York Times, had run huge headlines about Jack and Jill and the ongoing drama. In typical fashion, the press had gotten it mostly wrong -- but that would be helpful to him soon.
Kevin Hawkins joined in with the strangely noisy and almost festive crowd, several of whom had wandered over from holiday visits to the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. The unruly ambulance-chasers gathered outside the hotel told smugly ironic jokes, and he despised them for their big-city cynicism, their attitude.
He despised them even more than the useless president he had come to this city to kill.
He stayed at the outer edge of the crowd, just in case he suddenly had to move fast. He didn't want to be around there too late, but the presidential motorcade was running behind the schedule he had, the schedule he had been given.
Finally, he saw heads and necks in the crowd craning to the far left. He could hear the roar of cars coming up Park Avenue. The motorcade was approaching the hotel. It had to be the motorcade coming.
The dozen or so cars stopped at the canopied entrance on Park Avenue. Then Kevin Hawkins almost couldn't believe what he was seeing.
The arrogant bastard had chosen to walk inside from the street rather than use the underground garage.
He wanted to be seen -to be photographed. He wanted to show his courage to all the world... to show that Thomas Byrnes wasn't afraid of Jack and Jill.
The photojournalist watched the cocksure and vainglorious chief executive as he was ushered from his limousine. He could have taken out Thomas Byrnes right there! Once the hotshot, former automobile executive had made the decision to return the presidency to "business as usual," the assassination was virtually guaranteed.
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Amateurs made such amateurish decisions, Hawkins knew. Always.
It was a fact that he counted on in his work.
I could do him right now. I could take out the President right here on Park Avenue.
How does that make me feel? Excited--pumped. No guilt.
What a strange man I have become, Kevin Hawkins thought.
That was really why he was there that night- to test his emotional responses.
This was his dress rehearsal for the big event. The only rehearsal he would need, or get.
The Secret Service team smoothly and expertly got the President safely inside the hotel. Their coverage was excellent. Three tight rings around the PP, the protected person.
The presidential detail was very good, but not good enough.
No one could be. Not for what Kevin Hawkins had in mind.
A kamikaze attack! A suicide attack. The President would not be able to escape from it. No one could.
It was a done deal.
He watched the rest of the shiny blue and black sedans unload, and he recognized nearly every face. He took his usual mind photos. Dozens of shots to remember -- all inside his head.
Finally, he saw Jill. She looked so cool and utterly unconcerned.
She was such a great psycho in her own right, wasn't she?
Jill stood there in the middle of all the fuss and bustle. Then she disappeared inside the Waldorf with the rest of them.
The photojournalist finally sauntered away, down Park toward what had once been the Pan Am Building and now belonged to MetLife. A float with Snoopy driving Santa's sleigh stood out on the building's rooftop.
The President ought to buy some term life insurance tonight, he thought, whatever the price. The assassination is as good as done.
It was guaranteed.
But what Kevin Hawkins didn't even suspect, didn't realize, was that he too was being watched. He was under close observation, at that very moment, in New York City.
Jack was watching Kevin Hawkins stroll down Park Avenue.
JACK BE NIMBLEST.
Jack be quickest.
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After he had watched Kevin Hawkins disappear on Park Avenue, Sam Harrison left the crowded area near the Waldorf. New York was already as stirred up about Jack and Jill as Washington, D.C. That was good. It would make everything easier.
There was something he had to do now. He had to do this, no matter what the risks. It was the most important thing to him.
At the corner of Lexington Avenue and Forty-seventh Street, he stopped at a pay phone booth.
Surprisingly, the damn contraption actually worked. Maybe the only one that did in midtown.
As he dialed, he watched a garish street hooker plying her trade across Lexington. Nearby, a middle-aged gay man was picking up a blond teenager. Urban cowboys and girls sashayed into a peculiar New York bar called Ride'm High. He mourned for the old New York, for America as it had been, for real cowboys and real men.
He had important and necessary work to do in New York. Jack and Jill was heading toward its climax.
He was confident that the real truth would go to his grave with him. It had to be like that.
The truth had always been far too dangerous for the public to know. The truth didn't usually set people free, it just got them crazier.
Most people just couldn't handle the truth.
He finally reached a number in Maryland. There was a very small risk in the phone call, but he had to take it. He had to do this one thing for his own sanity.
A little girl's voice came on the phone. Immediately, he felt the most incredible relief, but also a joy he hadn't experienced in days. The girl sounded as if she were right there in New York.
"This is Karon speaking. How may I help you?" she said.
He had taught her to answer the phone.
He closed his eyes tight, and all of New York's depressing tawdriness, everything he was about to do was suddenly, effectively, shut out. Even Jack and Jill was gone from his thoughts for the briefest of moments. He was in a safety zone. He was home.
His little girl was what really counted for him now. She was the only thing that mattered. She'd been permitted to wait up late for his call.
He wasn't Jack as he cradled the phone receiver against his chin.
He wasn't Sam Harrison.
"It's Daddy," he said to his youngest child. "Hello, pumpkin-eater.
I miss you to bits. How are you? Where's Mommy?" he asked. "Are you guys taking good care of each other? I'll be home real soon. Do you miss me? I sure miss you."
He had to get away. with this, he thought as he talked to his daughter, and then to his wife. Jack and Jill Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
had to succeed.
He had to change history. He couldn't go home in a body bag. In disgrace. As the worst American traitor since Benedict Arnold.
No, the body bag was for President Thomas Byrnes. He deserved to die. So had all the others. They were all traitors in their own way Jack and Jill came to The Hill To kill, to kill, to kill.
And soon -- very soon -- it would be finished.
SOMETHING was clearly wrong at the hotel. We hadn't been at the Waldorf for more than a few minutes when I knew there was a serious breach in security I could see the way the Secret Service agents closed around President Byrnes and his wife as they entered the glittery hotel foyer.
Thomas and Sally Byrnes were hurriedly being escorted to their suite of rooms on the twenty-first floor. I knew the drill by heart. NYPD detectives had been working closely with the Secret Service detail. They had checked every conceivable and inconceivable method of infiltration into the Waldorf, including subways, sewers, and all the underground passages. Bomb-sniffing dogs had been marched through the midtown hotel just before our arrival. The dogs had also been taken that afternoon to the Plaza and the Pierre, other possible choices for the President's stay
"Alex." I heard from behind. "Alex, over here. In here, Alex."
Jay Grayer beckoned with his hand. "We've got a little problem already I don't know how they managed it, but they're definitely here in New York. Jack and Jill are here."
"What the hell is going on here, Jay?" I asked the Secret Service agent as we hurried past glass cases filled with quart-size perfume bottles and expensive clothing accessories.
Jay Grayer led me to the hotel's administrative offices, which were directly behind the front desk on the lobby floor. The room was already filled with Secret Service, FBI agents, and New York City police honchos. Everybody seemed to be listening to earphones or hand transmitters. They looked stressed-out, including the hotel management, with their own director of security and the proud claim that every president since Hoover had stayed at the Waldorf.
Grayer finally turned to me and said, "A delivery of flowers came about ten minutes ago. They're from our friends Jack and Jill. There's another rhyme with the flowers."
"Let's take a look at it. Let me see the message, please."
The note was on a mahogany desk next to an arrangement of blood-red roses. I read it as Grayer looked over my shoulder.
Jack and Jill went up The Hill And surprised the Chief with flowers.
We're here in town We're counting down Your last remaining hours.
"They want us to believe they're a couple of kooks," I said to Jay
"Do you?"
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"I sure as hell don't, but they're sticking with it. It's consistent as hell and it's all a plan. They definitely know what they're doing, and we definitely don't."
And Jack and Jill were definitely in New York City THE HEAVY WOODEN DOOR into President Thomas Byrnes's master bedroom opened at a few minutes past midnight. The Waldorf's presidential suite consisted of four bedrooms and two sitting rooms in the tower portion of the hotel. No other hotel guests were staying on that floor, or the floors immediately above and below.
"Who is it?" The President looked up from the book he was reading to try and calm his nerves. The book was the massive Truman by David McCullough. The President nearly dropped the heavy tome when the door opened unexpectedly Thomas Byrnes smiled when he saw who was standing between the doorway and a large antique armoire.
"Oh, it's you. I thought it might be Jill. I think she secretly likes me. Just a gut feeling I have," he said and chuckled.
Sally Byrnes forced a smile. "Only me. I wanted to say goodnight. And to see if you were all right, Tom."
The President looked fondly at his wife. They had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for the past few years. They'd had problems.
But they were still close friends. He believed they still loved each other, and always would.
"You didn't come to tuck me in?" he asked. "That's a shame."
"Of course I did. That, too. Tonight, you deserve a tuck-in."
Her husband smiled in a way that reminded both of them of better times, much better times. He could be a charmer when he wanted to be. Sally Byrnes knew that all too well. Tom could also be a major heartbreaker. Sally knew that, too. It had been that way for most of their years together. The agony and the ecstasy, she called the relationship. In truth, though, to be fair, it had been more ecstasy than agony They both believed that, and knew what they had was rare.
Thomas Byrnes lightly patted the edge of the bed, which was king-size with a partial canopy Sally came and sat beside him. He reached for her hand, and she gave it to him willingly She loved to hold hands with her Tom. She always had. She knew she still loved him in spite of past hurts and all their other troubles. She could forgive him for his affairs. She knew they meant nothing to him. She was secure in herself. Sally Byrnes also understood her husband better than anybody else. She knew how disturbed he was right now, how deeply frightened, and how vulnerable.
And she did love him, the whole complex package -- the arrogance, the diffidence, the insecurities, the very large ego at times.
She knew that he loved her and that they would always be best friends and soul mates.
"Tell you something weird," he said as he pulled her closer, as he tenderly held his wife of twenty-six years.
"Tell me. I expect nothing less than full disclosure, Mr. King."
It was a phrase they had both laughed over in the London stage play The Madness of George IlL The Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
queen had called George III "Mr. King" in bed.
"I think it's somebody we know. I had a talk about it with that homicide detective. He's the only one who had the balls to come to me with bad news. I think it could be somebody close to us, Sally That makes it all the more horrible."
Sally Byrnes tried not to show her fear. Her eyes traveled up and around the high-ceilinged bedroom.
There was a chair rail halfway up the walls. Baby-blue-and-cream wallpaper rose above the rail. God, how she wished they could go home to Michigan.
That's what she really wanted more than anything, for her and Tom to go back home.
"Have you told that to Don Hamerman?"
"I'm telling you," he whispered. "You, I can trust. You, I do trust."
Sally kissed his forehead softly, then his cheek, and finally his lips. "You sure about that?"
"Hundred percent," he whispered. "Although you have some good reasons to want to get me. Better reasons than most. Better than Jack and Jill, I'll bet."
"Hold me tight," she said. "Don't ever let go."
"Hold me tight," the President continued to whisper to his wife. "Don't you ever let go. I could stay like this with you forever.
And please, Sally, forgive me."
It's somebody close. It's somebody very close to me. President Thomas Byrnes couldn't turn off the disturbing thought as he held his wife. Somebody close.
"What would you like for Christmas, Tom? You know the press -- they always want to know."
President Byrnes thought for a moment.
"Peace. For this to be over."
IT WAS TIME to prove he was better than Jack and Jill. In his heart, he knew that he was. No contest.
Jack and Jill were basically full of crap.
The Cross house stood in dark, shifting shadows on Fifth Street in Washington's Southeast. It looked as if everyone inside had finally fallen asleep. We'll soon see. We'll just see about that, the killer thought to himself.
His name was Danny Boudreaux, if you really wanted to know the truth. He watched the streetlamp-lit scene from a clump of gum trees sprouting in an otherwise empty lot.
He was thinking about how much he hated Cross and his family. Alex Cross reminded him of his real father, who'd also been a cop devoted to his stupid job and who had left him and his mother because of it. Deserted them as if they were so much spit on the sidewalk. Then his mother had killed herself and he'd wound up with foster parents.
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Families made him sick, but bigshot Cross tried to be such a perfect daddy He was such a phony, a real scam artist. Worse than that, Cross had severely underestimated him and also "dissed" him several times.
Danny Boudreaux had been a classmate of Sumner Moore at Theodore Roosevelt. Sumner Moore had always been the perfect suck-up cadet, the perfect student, the perfect student-athlete a*shole. Moore had been his goddamn tutor since the previous summer. Danny Boudreaux had to go to the Moore house twice a week. He'd hated Sumner Moore from day one for being such a condescending and stuck-up little prick. He'd hated the whole condescending Moore family Well, he'd taught them a lesson.
He'd turned out to be the tutor.
His first totally outrageous idea had been to make it look as if Sumner Moore, the perfect cadet, were the child killer. He'd logged into the Moore's Prodigy account and led the cops right to their house. What a great frigging prank that had been -- the best. Then he'd decided to get rid of Sumner. That was the second outrageous idea. He'd enjoyed killing Sumner Moore even more than the little kids.
''He wanted to teach Cross a lesson now, too. Cross obviously didn't think the so-called Sojourner Truth School killer was worth much of his precious time. Danny Boudreaux was no Gary Soneji in the eyes of Alex Cross. He was no Jack and Jill. He was Nobody, right?
Well, we'll see about that, Dr. Cross. We'll just see how I stack up against Jack and Jill and the others.
Watch this one real closely, Doctor Hotshit Defective. You just might learn something.
In the next hour or so, a lot of people would learn not to underestimate Danny Boudreaux, not to snub him ever again.
Danny Boudreaux crossed Fifth Street, careful to keep his body in tree shadows. He walked right into the well-kept yard that bordered the Cross house.
He was thirteen, but small for his age. He was five three and only a hundred and ten pounds. He didn't look like much. The other cadets called him Mister Softee because he would melt into tears whenever they teased him, which was just about all the time.
For Danny Boudreaux hell week had lasted the whole school year.
No, it had lasted for his entire life so far. Christ, he had enjoyed killing Sumner Moore! It was like killing his whole goddamn school]
He smeared gray eye shadow over his face, his neck, and his hands as he waited across from the Cross house. He had on dark jeans and a black shirt, and also a dark camo face mask made by Treebark. He had to fit in with the African-American neighborhood, right? Well, no one had paid much attention to him on Sixth Street, or even walking along E Street on his way to Fifth.
Danny Boudreaux touched the butt of the Smith & Wesson semiautomatic in the deep pocket of his poncho. The gun held a dozen shots. He was loaded for bear. The safety was off. He started crying again. Hot tears were streaming down his face. He wiped them away with his sleeve. No more Mr.
Softee.
He did perfect murders.
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NOTHING IN HEAVEN or on earth could save Alex Cross's cute little family now. They were next in line to die. It was the move he had to make. The right move at the right time. Hey, hey, what do you say
?
Danny Boudreaux inched his way up the back-porch steps of the house. He didn't make a freaking sound.
He could be a damn good cadet when he needed to be. A fine young soldier. He was on maneuvers tonight, that's all it was. He was on a nocturnal mission.
Search and destroy.
He didn't hear any noises coming from inside the house. No late-night TV sounds. No Letterman, Leno, and Beavis and Butt-head, NordicTrack commercials. No piano playing, either. That probably meant Cross was sleeping now, too. So be it. The sleep of the dead, right ?
He touched the doorknob and immediately wanted to pull his fingers away The metal felt like dry ice against his skin. He held on, though. He turned the knob slowly, slowly Then he pulled it toward him.
The goddamn door was locked! For some crazy reason he'd imagined it wouldn't be. He could still get in the house through this door, but he might make some noise.
That wouldn't do.
That wasn't perfect.
He decided to go around front and check the situation there.
He knew there was a sun porch. A piano on the porch. Cross played the blues out there -- but the blues were only just beginning for the good doctor. After tonight, the rest of his life would be nothing but the blues.
Still no sound came from inside the house. He knew Cross hadn't moved his family out of harm's way That showed more disrespect on his part. Cross wasn't afraid of him. Well, he ought to be afraid.
Dammit, Cross ought to be scared shitless of him!
Danny Boudreaux reached out to try the door to the sun porch. The young killer broke out in a sweat.
Boudreaux could hardly breathe. He was seeing his worst nightmare, and his nightmares were really bad.
Detective John Sampson was staring right at him! The black giant was there on the porch. Waiting for him. Sitting there, all smug as hell.
He'd been caught!Jesus. They'd set a trap for him. He'd fallen for it like a true chump.
But, hey, wait a damn minute. Wait a minute!
Something was wrong with this picture... or rather something was very right with the picture!
Danny Boudreaux blinked his eyes, then he stared real hard.
He concentrated hard. Sampson was sleeping in the big, fluffy armchair next to the piano.
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His stockinged feet were propped up on a matching hassock.
His holstered gun was on a small side table, maybe twelve inches from his right hand. His holstered gun.
Twelve inches. Hmmm. Just twelve little inches, the killer thought, mulled it over.
Danny Boudreaux held on to the doorknob for dear life. He didn't move. His chest hurt as if he'd been punched.
What to do? What to do? What in hell to do?... TWELVE MEASLY INCHES...
His mind was going about a million miles a second. There were so many thoughts blasting through his brain that it almost shut down on him.
He wanted to go at Sampson. To rush in and take the big moke out. Then hurry upstairs and do the family. He wanted it so much that the thought burned in him, scared the inside of his brain, fried his thought waves.
He slid in and out of his military mind. The better part of valor and all that shit. Logic conquers all. He knew what he had to do.
Even more slowly than he'd come up the steps, he backed away from the porch door of the Cross house. He couldn't believe how close he'd come to stumbling right into the huge, menacing detective.
Maybe he could have snuck up on the big moke -- blown his brains out. Maybe not, though. The big moke was a really big moke.
No, the Truth School killer wouldn't take the chance. He had too much fun, too many games, ahead of him to blow it like this.
He was too experienced now. He was getting better and better at this.
He disappeared into the night. He had other choices, other business, he could take care of. Danny Boudreaux was on the loose in D.C., and he loved it. He had a taste for it now. There would be time for Cross and his stupid family later.
He'd already forgotten that just minutes before he had been crying his eyes out. He hadn't taken his medicine in seven days.
The hated, despicable Depakote, his goddamn mood-disorder medicine.
He was wearing his favorite sweatshirt again. Happy, happy.
Joy, joy.
I WOKE WITH A START and a trembling shiver. My skin was prickling, my heart racing furiously.
Bad dream? Something unholy, real, or imagined? The room was pitch-black, all the lights out, and it took me a second to remember where in the name of God I was.
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Then I remembered. I remembered everything. I was part of the team assigned to try and protect the President- except the President had decided to make our job even harder than it had been. The President had decided to travel out of Washington m to show the colors- to demonstrate that he wasn't afraid of terrorists and crackpots of any kind.
I was in New York City m at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Park Avenue. Jack and Jill were in New York, too. They were so sure of themselves that they had sent us a calling card.
I groped around for the lamp on the bedside table, then for the damn lamp switch. Finally, I clicked it on.
I looked at the night table clock. Two fifty-five.
"That's just terrific," I whispered under my breath. "That's great."
I thought of calling my kids in Washington. Calling Nana. It wasn't a real serious idea, but the notion floated across my mind.
I thought about Christine Johnson. Calling her at home. Absolutely not! But I did have the thought, and I did like the idea of talking to her on the phone.
I finally pulled on a pair of khakis, stepped into battered Converse sneaks, slipped into an old sweatshirt.
I wandered out into the hotel. I needed to be out of my hotel room. I needed to be out of my own skin.
The Waldorf-Astoria was sound asleep. As it should be. Except that very uptight Secret Service agents were posted everywhere! in every hallway where I wandered. The presidential detail was on its night watch. They were mostly athletic-looking men, who reminded me of very fit accountants. Only a couple of women were assigned to the detail in New York.
"You going for a late walk through midtown New York, Detective Cross?" one of the Secret Service agents asked as I passed by.
It was a woman named Camille Robinson. She was serious and very dedicated, as most of the Secret Service agents seemed to be. They seemed to like President Thomas Byrnes a lot, enough to take a bullet for.
"My mind is up and mnning, for sure," I said and managed a smile. "Probably do a couple of marathons before morning. You okay? Need some coffee or anything?"
Camille shook her head and kept her serious face on. Watchdogs can be female, too. I'd met my share of them. I saluted the diligent agent, then kept on walking.
A few thoughts continued to plague me as I wandered inside the eerily quiet hotel. My mind was running way too hot.
The murder of Charlotte Kinsey was one disturbing puzzle piece.
That murder might have been committed by somebody other than Jack and Jill. Could there be a third killer? Why would there be a third killer? How did it fit?
I continued down another long hallway, and down still another track in my mind.
What about larger and more complicated conspiracies? Dallas and JFK? Los Angeles and RFK?
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Memphis and Dr. King?
Where did that insane and depressing line of thinking take me?
The list of possible conspirators was impossibly long, and I didn't have the resources to get at most of the suspects, anyway. The crisis group talked about conspiracies a lot. The Federal Bureau was obsessed with conspiracies. So was the CIA... but a powerful fact remained: thirty years after the Kennedy assassinations, no one was really convinced that either of those murders had been solved.
The more I delved into conspiracy theories, the more I realized that getting to the core was almost impossible. Certainly, no one had yet. I'd talked to several people at the Assassination Archives and Research Center in Washington, and they had come to exactly the same conclusion. Or dead end.
I wandered into the hallway on the twenty-first floor, where the President was sleeping. I had a chilling thought that he might be dead in his room; that Jack and Jill had already struck and left a note, another poem for us to discover in the morning.
"Everything okay?" I asked the agents stationed just outside the door of the presidential suite.
They watched me carefully, as if they were asking themselves, Why is he here? "So far," one of them said stiffly. "No problems here."
Eventually, I made it full circle back to my room. It was almost four in the morning.
I slipped inside the room. Lay down on the bed. I thought of my conversation with Sampson earlier that night, hearing about the murder of Sumner Moore. Apparently, the Moore boy wasn't the Truth School killer. I tried not to think about either case anymore.
I finally dozed until six -- when the clock radio went off like a fire alarm next to my head.
Rock-and-roll music blared. "K-Rock" in New York. Howard Stem was talking to me. He had worked down in Washington years ago. Howard said, "The prez is in town. Can Jack and Jill be far away?"
Everybody knew about it. The President's motorcade through Manhattan started at eleven. Stagecoach was ready to roll again.
HISTORY was about to be made in New York City. At the very least, it was white-knuckle time.
Definitely that. The game had ceased being a game.
Jack jogged at a strong, steady pace through Central Park. It was a little before six in the morning. He'd been out running since just after five. He had a lot on his mind. D day had finally arrived. New York City was the war zone, and he couldn't imagine a better one.
He observed the very striking Manhattan skyline from where he was running alongside Fifth Avenue, heading south. Above the tall, uneven line of buildings, the sky was the color of charcoal seen through tissue paper. Huge plumes of smoke billowed up from turn-of-the-century buildings.
It was pretty as hell, actually. Close to glorious. Not the way he usually thought of New York City. It was just a facade, though.
Like Jack and Jill, he was thinking.
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As he ran alongside a blue city bus chargang down Fifth Avenue, he wondered if he might die in the next few hours. He had to be ready for that, to be prepared for anything.
Kamikaze, he thought. The final plan was deadly, and it was as surefire as these things could be. He didn't believe that the target could possibly survive this attack. No one could. There would be other deaths as well. This was a war, after all, and people died in war.
Jack finally emerged from the park at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-ninth.
He continued to run south, picking up his pace.
A few moments later, he entered the formal and attractive lobby of the Peninsula Hotel in the West Fifties. It was ten past six in the morning. The Peninsula was a little more than twenty blocks from Madison Square Garden, where President Byrnes was scheduled to appear at twenty-five past eleven.
The New York Times was just being delivered into the hotel lobby He caught the headline: JACK AND
JILL KILLERS FEARED IN NEW YORK AS PRESIDENT VISITS.
He was impressed. Even the Times was on top of things.
Then Jack saw Jill. Jill was right on time in the lobby. Always on time. She was at the Peninsula according to plan. Always according to plan.
She had on a silver-and-blue jogging suit, but she didn't look as if she'd raised a sweat coming up from the Waldorf. He wondered if she had run or walked. Or maybe even caught a Yellow Cab.
He didn't acknowledge her in any way He stepped into a waiting elevator and took it to his floor. Sara would take the next elevator.
He let himself into his room and waited for her. A single knock on the door. She was on schedule. Less than sixty seconds behind him.
"I look terrible," she said. Sara's first words. It was so typical of her self-effacing tone, her view of herself, her vulnerability Sara the poor gimp.
"No, you don't," he reassured her. "You look beautiful, because you are beautiful." She didn't look her best, though. She was showing the terrible strain of these last hours. Her face was a mask of worry and doubt, too much makeup and mascara and bright red lipstick. D day. She'd sprayed her blond hair, and it looked brittle.
"The Waldorf is hopping already," she reported to him. "They think an assassination attempt definitely will be made today They're ready for it, at least they think they are. Five thousand regular New York police, plus the Secret Service, the FBI. They have an army on hand."
"Let them think they're ready," Jack said. "We'll see soon enough, won't we? Now come here, you," he smiled. "You don't look terrible at all. Never happen. You look ravishing, Sara. May I ravage you?"
"Now?" Sara weakly protested. It was a whisper. So tiny and vulnerable and unsure. But she couldn't resist his strong, reassuring embrace. She never had been able to, and that was part of the plan as well.
Everything had been anticipated, which was why they couldn't fail.
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He slid out of his running shirt, exposing a glistening-wet chest. All the tufts of his hair were damp with sweat. He pressed up against Sara. She arched her body hard against him. Their pulses were racing.
Jack and Jill. In New York. So close to the end.
He could feel her heartbeat quickening, like a small hunted animal's. She couldn't help it. She was so scared now, legitimately so.
"Please tell me that we'll see each other again, even if we won't.
Tell me it isn't over after today, Sam."
"It won't be over, Monkey Face. I'm as frightened as you are right now. To feel this way is normal, and sane. You're very sane.
We both are."
"In a few hours we'll be on our way out of New York. All of this Jack and Jill will be behind us," she whispered. "Oh, I do love you, Sam. I love you so much that it's scary."
It was scary. More than Sara could possibly know. More than anybody ought to know, or ever would.
History wasn't for the general public -- it never had been.
Slowly and carefully, he slid a Ruger from the rear waistband of his sweatpants. His hands were sweaty He was holding his breath now. He placed the gun against Sara's head and fired at a slightly downward angle into her temple. Just one shot.
A professional execution.
Without passion.
Almost without passion.
The Ruger was silenced. The noise in the hotel room was no more than a tiny, insignificant spit. The harsh impact of the 9mm bullet took her out of his arms. He shivered involuntarily as he looked down on the lifeless body on the hotel rug.
"Now it's over," he said. "The pain of your life is over, all the bitterness and hurt. I'm sorry, Monkey Face."
He put the final note in Jill's right hand. Then he squeezed her fist so that the note crumpled naturally. He held Sara's hand for the last time.
And Jill came tumbling after. He thought of the words in the children's rhyme.
But Jack would not fall down.
The day of ultimate madness had begun.
Jack and Jill had finally begun.