Five lines.
Jack and Jill came to The Hill To right another error.
To make it short Her news report Was filled with her own terror.
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I shook my head back and forth a few times, but didn't say anything about the note to Pittman. To hell with him. The rhyme didn't tell me much of anything yet. I hoped it would eventually. Actually, the rhymes were clever, but without emotion. What had made these two killers so clever and cold?
I continued to search the bedroom. I was infamous in homicide circles for spending a lot of time at crime scenes. Sometimes I'd spend a whole day. I planned to do the same thing here. Most of the dead woman's effects seemed to tie in with her career, almost as if she had no other life. Videocassettes, expense sheets from her network, a pilfered stapler with CBS engraved on it. I observed the murder scene, and the dead woman, from several angles. I wondered if the killers had taken anything with them.
I couldn't concentrate the way I wanted to, though. Chief Pittman had gotten on my nerves. I had let him get to me.
Why had both victims been left exposed? What was it that connected them in death- at least in the minds of the murderers?
The killers felt compelled to graphically point out certain things to us. In fact, everything about Fitzpatrick and Sheehan was in public view now. Thanks to Jack and Jill.
This is so bad, I thought and had to reach down deep for a breath.
Worst of all, I was completely hooked on the case. I was definitely hooked.
Then everything took a turn for the worse in the bedroom. A bad and unexpected turn.
I was standing near George Pittman when he spoke again, without looking at me. "You come back after we're finished, Cross. Come back later."
The Jefe's words hung like stale smoke in the air. I had trouble believing that he'd actually said them. I have always tried to act with some respect toward Pittman. It's been hard, nearly impossible most of the time, but I've done it anyway.
"I'm talking to you, Cross," Pittman raised his voice a notch.
"You hear what I said? Do you hear me?"
Then the chief of detectives did something he shouldn't have, something so bad, something I couldn't look past. He reached out and pushed me with the heel of his hand. Pushed me hard.
I stumbled back a half-step. Caught my balance. Both my fists slowly rose to my chest.
I didn't stop to think. Maybe some stored-up venom and powerful dislike made me act. That was part of it.
I reached out and grabbed Pittman with both hands. This unspoken thing between us, the pattern of disrespect from him, had been building for a couple of years -- at least that long. Now it flared big-time and ugly. It exploded inside the dead woman's bedroom.
George Pittman and i are about the same age. He's not as tall as I am, but he's probably heavier by thirty pounds. He has the squat, blocklike build and look of a football linebacker from the early sixties. He's bad at his job and he shouldn't have it. He resents the hell out of me because I'm decent at what I do.
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F*cker!
I grabbed and picked him up, right off the floor. I look fairly strong, but I'm actually a lot stronger.
Pittman's eyes widened in disbelief and sudden fear.
I slammed him hard against the bedroom wall. Then banged him into the wall a second time. Nothing lethal or too damaging, but definitely a bell-ringer, an attention-grabber.
Each time his body hit, the staid Jefferson Hotel seemed to shake to its very foundation. TheJefe's body went slack. He didn't fight back. He couldn't believe what I'd just done. To be honest, neither could I.
I loosened my grip on Pittman. I finally let him go, and he wobbled on his feet. I knew I hadn't hurt him much physically, but I had hurt his pride. I had also made a big mistake.
I didn't say a word. Neither did the other gray suit in the room.
I took some solace in the fact that Pittman had pushed first. He had started this, and for no reason. I wondered if the other suit had seen it that way, but I doubted it.
I left the crime-scene bedroom. Pittman never spoke to me.
I wondered also if I had just left the Washington Police Department.
"THIS IS AN ALERT! Something is going down at Crown. Up and at 'em, everybody! We've got trouble at Crown. This is a real alert! This is not a drill! This is for real."
Half a dozen Secret Service agents took the sudden alert very seriously. They watched Jack through Range master binoculars, three sets of them.
Jack was on the move.
They couldn't believe what they were witnessing. Not one of the agents could believe this very bad scene playing out before them. The alert was definitely for real, though.
"It's Jack, all right. What is he -- crazy?"
"We have full visual contact with Jack. Where the hell is he going? Goddamn him. What's going on?"
The six watchers comprised three highly professional teams.
They were all first-teamers, among the best and brightest of more than two thousand Secret Service agents working around the world. They sat inside dark-colored Ford sedans parked on Fifteenth Street Northwest. This was getting very serious, and very scary, in a hurry.
This is a real alert.
This is not a drill.
"Jack is definitely leaving Crown now. It's twenty-three forty.
At this moment, we have Jack in our crosshairs," one of the agents spoke into the car mike.
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"Yeah. Jack can be a real tricky fellow, though. He's proven it before. Keep him right in your sights.
Where's the lovely Jill, home base?"
"This is home base," a female agent's voice came onto the line immediately
"Jill is nice and comfy up on the third floor of Crown. She's reading Barbara Bush on Barbara Bush.
She's in her jammies. Not to worry about Jill."
"We're absolutely sure about that?"
"Home base is sure about Jill. Jill's in bed. Jill is being a good girl, for tonight anyway"
"Good for Jill. How the hell did Jack get out?"
"He used that old tunnel between the basement of Crown and the Treasury Building. That's how he got out!"
This is an alert.
This is not a drill.
Jack is on the move.
"Jack is approaching Pennsylvania Avenue now. He's near the Willard Hotel. He just glanced back over his shoulder. Jack's paranoid, as well he should be. I don't think he saw us. Oh, shit, somebody just flashed their high beams in front of the Willard.
A vehicle is pulling out -- and pulling up alongside Jack! RedJeep!
Jack is getting inside the f*cking redJeep."
"Roger. So much for having Jack in our damn crosshairs. We'll follow him pronto. Virginia plates on the Jeep. License number two-three-one HCY. Koons dealer sticker. Start a te -- crazy?"
"We have full visual contact with Jack. Where the hell is he going? Goddamn him. What's going on?"
The six watchers comprised three highly professional teams.
They were all first-teamers, among the best and brightest of more than two thousand Secret Service agents working around the world. They sat inside dark-colored Ford sedans parked on Fifteenth Street Northwest. This was getting very serious, and very scary, in a hurry.
This is a real alert.
This is not a drill.
"Jack is definitely leaving Crown now. It's twenty-three forty.
At this moment, we have Jack in our crosshairs," one of the agents spoke into the car mike.
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"Yeah. Jack can be a real tricky fellow, though. He's proven it before. Keep him right in your sights.
Where's the lovely Jill, home base?"
"This is home base," a female agent's voice came onto the line immediately
"Jill is nice and comfy up on the third floor of Crown. She's reading Barbara Bush on Barbara Bush.
She's in her jammies. Not to worry about Jill."
"We're absolutely sure about that?"
"Home base is sure about Jill. Jill's in bed. Jill is being a good girl, for tonight anyway"
"Good for Jill. How the hell did Jack get out?"
"He used that old tunnel between the basement of Crown and the Treasury Building. That's how he got out!"
This is an alert.
This is not a drill.
Jack is on the move.
"Jack is approaching Pennsylvania Avenue now. He's near the Willard Hotel. He just glanced back over his shoulder. Jack's paranoid, as well he should be. I don't think he saw us. Oh, shit, somebody just flashed their high beams in front of the Willard.
A vehicle is pulling out -- and pulling up alongside Jack! RedJeep!
Jack is getting inside the f*cking redJeep."
"Roger. So much for having Jack in our damn crosshairs. We'll follow him pronto. Virginia plates on the Jeep. License number two-three-one HCY. Koons dealer sticker. Start a trace on the Jeep, now."
"We're following the red Jeep. We're on Jack's ass. Full alert for the Jackal. Repeat: full alert for the Jackal. This is not a drill!"
"Do not lose Jack tonight of all nights. Do not lose Jack under any circumstances."
"Roger. We have Jack in plain sight."
Three dark sedans took off in hot pursuit of the Jeep. Jack was the Secret Service's code name for President Thomas Byrnes.
Jill was the code name for the First Lady. Crown had been the Service's code word for the White House for nearly twenty years.
Most of the current-duty agents genuinely liked President Byrnes. He was a down-to-earth guy, a very regular person as recent presidents went. Not too much bullshit about him. Occasionally, though, the President took off on an unannounced date with some lady friend, either in D.C. or on the road. The Secret Service referred to this as "the president's disease." Thomas Byrnes was hardly the first to suffer Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/ab*.html
from this malady. John Kennedy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and especially Lyndon Johnson had been the worst offenders. It seemed to be a perk of high office.
The coincidence of the names chosen by the two psychopathic killers in D.C., the so-called celebrity stalkers, wasn't lost on the Secret Service. The Secret Service didn't believe in coincidences. They had already met four times on the matter -- long, difficult meetings in the Emergency Command Center in the West Wing basement of the White House. The name for any would-be assassins of the president was Jackal.
Jackal had been used by the Secret Service for more than thirty years.
The "coincidence" of the names worried the PPD, the Presidential Protection Division, a great deal-especially.when President Byrnes decided to go out on one of his unannounced walks, which for obvious reasons didn't include any of his bodyguards.
There were two Jacks and two Jills.
The Secret Service did not, could not, accept this as a coincidence.
"We've lost the red Jeep around the Tidal Basin. We've lost Jack," an agent's voice suddenly exploded over the car-radio speakers.
Everything was chaos. Full-alert chaos.
This was not a test.