The President's Assassin Part 39

"No . . . they never did."

"Nor can you prove that I met Clyde, or that I ever called him."

"There are no surviving witnesses."

"I've already offered perfectly plausible explanations for the evidence you have, haven't I?"

"Plausible enough."

She nodded. "You don't see the fatal problem with your fantasy, Sean?"

"Tell me."

"They never mentioned my name because I wasn't their source. There are no witnesses . . . there is no evidence, because it wasn't me." She sounded sincere, without a wrinkle of dishonesty on her face or even a hint of insincerity in her blue eyes. In fact she was so utterly convincing, no jury in the world would disbelieve her. She stepped toward me and took my hands. She smiled. "I'm afraid you're going to make a lousy witness."

"Am I?"

"Were you falling for me, Sean?"

I wasn't going to answer that.

Of course she already knew the answer. "Because you're obviously brokenhearted and embittered. You're allowing your hurt and anger to cloud your judgment."

"Is that right?"

"Look, it's time to be honest with yourself. You were a decent partner and mildly entertaining company, Sean. That's all there ever was. I'm sorry if you thought there was more." She squeezed my hand and added, "There wasn't."

"I know."

"I hope you do know." We stared at each other for a long moment. Endgame. She had gloated at her victory and was administering her coup de grace. She looked at me long enough to be sure I knew she had won before she glanced at her watch and said, "Oh my, look how the time flies. My exercise period starts in only two minutes. You don't mind, do you?"

"Not at all."

I turned and started to walk away. About ten feet from Jennie, I turned back around and faced her. I said, "Back at the town-house, you nearly killed me, didn't you? You thought about it, didn't you?"

She shrugged, a gesture of complete neutrality. Yet, given the nature of the question, anything but neutral. In that moment Jennie wanted me to know, wanted me to fully appreciate that I was, in her mind, entirely disposable. She could kill me or not; I was that irrelevant.

I informed her, "Not killing me was the one mistake you made."

"And why would that be, Sean?"

"Because yesterday I remembered something. The Bureau was so focused on the killings up here, it's the one thing they . . . actually, the one lead we all overlooked."

Though she clearly knew this was not going to be good news, she did not bat an eye. "Go on."

"I asked Eric Tanner to have his people conduct a second search of Clyde's house in Killeen. I told him to use jackhammers this time, tear it to pieces, right down to the foundation." When she did not respond, I informed her, "They found it in the bas.e.m.e.nt, behind a false wall."

"Found what?"

"Knowing Clyde, as you surely do, he had a great fondness for weapons. Apparently, the idea of discarding oneeven one he used for murderIt was simply too much for him. A military surplus M14 rifle with a long-range scope was found behind that wall. The ballistics match with the bullet that killed John Fisk was made this morning."

For the briefest instant, Jennie's scrupulous composure left her, and I saw in her eyes a flicker of fear, of anger, and something I've never seen in any human eye . . . something indescribable I was sure was madness. As fast as it appeared, it disappeared, replaced by an expression of chilling complacence. But she surely understood the game was truly over. She understood that the rifle tied Clyde Wizner to John Fisk's murder, and it tied Jennifer Margold to Clyde Wizner, and as she herself had underscored throughout this conversation, once that connection was made, she was toast.

Also, Jennie had guessed right, I was wired. On that signal the door was shoved open,' and two large matrons and Larry emerged. The matrons took Jennie's arms and tried to lead her back inside. She said, "Wait. . . I'm not readyjust give me a minute. Please."

The matrons appeared confused and looked to Larry for guidance. He signaled with his arm for them to release her.

Then Jennie did the strangest thing. She walked straight to me, bent forward, and kissed me. Then she spun around and left with her two matrons in tow, leaving me alone with Larry.

I knew Jennie would not be going to her exercise period. She would be brought to another interrogation room, where two fresh faces she had not yet defeated would take another whack at her. Larry and the interrogation experts had predicted that the emotional shock of this d.a.m.ning new evidence, would crack Jennie wide open. They would go back to the textbook, using one lie to expose the next, and would elicit, if not contrition, at least a partial confession.

I was certain they were wrong. And I was certain it no longer mattered.

I watched the door close behind her.

Larry watched, too, then said to me, "Great job, Drummond. You really rattled her."

"But she never confessed," I pointed out.

"She didn't have to. The rifle is the prybar. We'd get it out of her."

Since I was sure he was wrong, I offered no reply.

He looked at me and said, "You okay?"

"No. I'm not."

"Forget about her. She was bad news, Drummond."

"She was beyond bad news, Larry." After a moment I asked him, "What's your best federal prison?"

"I don't. . . Well, I guess . . . probably Leavenworth."

"Put her there. Give Jennie her own cell in her own wing. Keep her in complete isolation. Throw away the key. Pray she never gets out."

"If she ever did, I wouldn't want to be you."

I did not respond because Larry's observation required no response.

The kissit is the most universal gesture and, thereby, easily the most misread. In America it signifies affection, or l.u.s.t, or even love, whereas in other cultures, and in other societies, its meaning can stretch from a modest greeting to a fraternal gesture, to a mark of revenge or even a promise of death.

Jennie made her own rules, and I knew that her kiss was no ordinary gesture, and that, in any normal sense, it defied a simple or innocent cla.s.sification. She was a trapped animal and that kiss was her last feral growl. As a rancher brands a cow or, I think, more uniquely, as a dog marks a tree, Jennie's kiss was both territorial and an implicit promise that she was not through with me, and this was not over.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.

The rain was coming down in heavy sheets as the government sedan took Phyllis and me to Dulles International Airport for the afternoon flight to Oman. She had insisted on accompanying me for some reason. We said very little at first. I think Phyllis was happy to be rid of me, happy to have me out of her hair, and she came along to be sure I climbed on the plane and left.

I must not have been paying attention because when I looked out the window, we had left the GW Parkway and were three-quarters up the exit ramp for Rosslyn. I bent forward toward the driver. "Hey pal, Dulles is back that way."

Phyllis said, "He knows where Dulles is."

"But"

"Sit back and relax."

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

"I want to know now."

"I knew you'd say that."

So I sat back into the seat and watched the gleaming high-rises and people rus.h.i.+ng around as we drove through Rosslyn, and off to our left I saw the Iwo Jima monument, where five Marines and a Navy corpsman were straining to stuff the stars and stripes into the pinnacle of Mount Suribachi. We entered the north gate of Fort Myer. We drove up a large hill and took a left and ended up at the tidy, red-brick post chapel. Phyllis grabbed an umbrella and said to me, "Come along."

She came around the car to meet me with her umbrella, and she took my arm. For the next five minutes we walked without exchanging a word, her guiding, me following, through the entrance into Arlington National Cemetery, and then down a long hill, through the long, neat rows of white stones with crosses and stars, memorials to the dead. The skies were dark, and a few hardy souls were wandering through the markers. Here and there, I saw people placing a wreath on a grave.

Still walking, Phyllis pointed toward a white stone on our left. "Harry Rostow. I dated Harry in high school. A fine boy. The best athlete in the cla.s.s. He was on his way to Harvard when the war broke out. Poor Harry got it at Anzio, had his legs blown off and died horribly."

She turned and pointed at another marker, about ten crosses in. "Jackson Byler. The best man at my wedding. Jackson was killed at Pork Chop Hill in Korea. Left behind a wife and two babies."

I too had friends buried here, and relatives. In fact, I had last been here the year before burying a dear friend. Like all soldiers, I could not tread this hillside without getting a dullness in my chest and a lump in my throat. Among all the vast fields and prairies that are in America, these few acres are special and unique, a pasture of dead soldiers, the resting place of both heroes and simple men and women who did their best when it was needed. There is a wonderful gentleness to the place, the serenity of the dead, and more than a few haunting memories. I pointed over Phyllis's left shoulder. "My uncle Jerry's over there. Vietnam, cla.s.s of '68. The Tet offensive. My father was in country at the same time. Missed his own brother's funeral."

"I imagine you've attended lots of funerals here."

"I'll bet not as many as you." After a moment, I asked, "Phyllis, why are we here?"

She ignored my question. "Oblige me."

Anyway, as we continued to walk, my mind wandered back to the day I entered the Army, like all new soldiers filled with optimism and lofty purpose, the n.o.ble knight donning his armor to go forth and slay the dragons. The task ahead was simple and uncomplicatedto battle all enemies, foreign and domestic, black versus white, good versus evil, n.o.ble people combating ign.o.ble people, and indeed, G.o.d was, is, and always will be on our side. But the years pa.s.s. You learn it is never so clean, so pure, so chaste. G.o.d hedges and takes everybody's side. You fight the battles to the best of your ability, but each battle has its own cost, if not of the flesh, always there are new chips on your soul.

We reached the bottom of the hill, and Phyllis went left and led me about ten stones in. We stopped, and I looked at the particular cross Phyllis was gazing at: "Alexander Carney, Major, USMC."

"Your husband?"

"I try to come here every April 17th." She fell silent, watching the cross, sharing some kind of silent reverie with the dead. But also, I thought, at Phyllis's age, she surely was aware that the shadows were lengthening, it wouldn't be long before there would be a cross with her name etched on it, and I wondered if she was reflecting on her own mortality.

Eventually she said, "All these fine people . . . how much they would give to live another day, another hour, another minute."

Remembering my biblical verses, I whispered, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away."

She commented, though I suspect not with relation to anybody on this hillside, "But he taketh away more from some than others."

Indeed he does. I recalled a photograph of Jennifer Margold from the Bureau's background file, taken when she was about ten years old, still innocent, still pure, not yet in the grip of the malignant demons who would infest her soul.

The picture was lifted from a yearbook, perhaps, with twenty little boys and girls gathered in two rows, standing and staring brightly into the camera. They were all smiling happily and innocently, but for one; fourth from the left, in the second row, one little girl appeared sullen and distant, not looking at the camera but into an empty s.p.a.ce, as though already aware she was soiled and impure and did not belong in this group.

The world can try men's souls, but truly, children should not have to witness and bear its horrors before their time. I think we create our own monsters, and then we wonder in amazement how they failed us, when it was we who failed them.

Phyllis took my arm again, and we began our long walk back up the hill.