I bring this up because how could I predict on this day that the floor would fall out of my game because of an offer to be the presidential press secretary, one of the most visible jobs in America and a position that would eventually lead to great fortune for anyone who did it with even a modicum of success? There would be eventual book contracts, a sprawling office with plush carpet and a private bath heading the public relations division of a Wall Street investment house, grossly overpaying appearances performing punditry on network television. Not to mention that while you're at the White House, you might be able to work for what you believe in, perhaps even do some good for the country, if only for a short time.
Hutchins seemed to understand the reason for my golfing collapse, and he was reveling in it. There are two types of golfers, best as I could ever tell: those who just care about the score, the final outcome, whether the eight-foot putt hits dead center or skims by left, and those who luxuriate in the human element, the give and take, the frazzled nerves standing over that same eight-foot putt. The former usually are athletes, the latter are sportsmen, and I'd count Hutchins in the sportsmen's category, all toothy, even giddy, as the witness to my collapse, extending the occasional needle about being in need of a compass and a thermos as I made my way into the woods in search of an errant drive.
He, meanwhile, began hitting fairways off the tee with what I gathered was an unprecedented regularity. He began clicking his five iron off the fairway as pure as silk, his ball attracted to the green like a magnet. I heard one advance man suggest into his handheld radio that they might want to allow a network crew out onto the eighteenth hole for a candid look at the president at play, hitting soaring woods and deadly irons. I heard yet another aide use the word miracle on one particularly accurate approach shot, a seven iron from 140 yards that came within a club's length of the hole. Hutchins heard him, too, and shot him a look that would bring a Russian leader to his knees.
On the sixteenth hole, I skimmed four balls along the fairway and ended up inside a cavernous sand trap in front of the green, my ball pancaked hard into the grain. Hutchins, on the other hand, hit two beautiful shots, but caught a bad break and wound up in the same trap. It was as if we had stepped into a parallel universe.
'Here we are, Jack, together at last,' he said, stepping onto the sand, so happy with life he hardly seemed able to contain himself.
Skeeter stepped into the trap as well and began giving us a few tips, looking, actually, far more at the president than at me: weight on your toes, club face open, come down hard into the sand an inch behind the ball and make sure you follow through. He demonstrated one shot and hit it within a few feet of the pin. Hutchins shrieked in delight. In my mind, I told him to go fuck himself-Davis, not Hutchins.
What happened next is the subject of considerable debate, a few moments in history that were to be picked over by news reporters, defense lawyers, federal prosecutors, and FBI agents for weeks to come. But before they all trampled my thoughts, making the rapid-fire events melt and twist around into each other, here are my recollections, virgin as an overnight snow:
I gave Hutchins a nod, indicating, You should hit first. He addressed his ball, and I stood about six feet behind him. As he finished what I thought would be his last practice swing, there was a dull crack.
Water began shooting every which way.
'Fuck,' Hutchins yelled. 'Fuck.' Two aides raced toward him with golf umbrellas and dry towels. On the other side of the fairway, I saw the Secret Service swat team leap from their carts and take aim at sites unknown with their automatic rifles. The four agents around us all pulled their guns and surrounded the president, serving as a human shield.
One of the agents, speaking furiously into his wrist, soon nodded and holstered his gun.
'The sprinkler system was mistakenly activated,' he called out loudly.
'It should be off in a minute.'
Then I saw a golf cart carrying two maintenance workers race up the fairway toward a small shed in the shallow woods. One of the guys leaped out, and within a few seconds, the spouting water retreated into a light spray, and then to nothing, as the sprinkler heads ducked back into the ground. Several aides helped dry Hutchins off. The Secret Service agents walked away, the sense of impending doom having been replaced by a rainbow that hung in the air over the green. Hutchins returned to his ball and took one of those foolish half swings, eager to return to his game.
And then, much louder this time, crack. It was jarring not just for the sheer volume, which was immense, but for how out of place it seemed on this magnificent day, in this beautiful setting.
And then, again, crack.
I saw Hutchins fall hard into the sand. I saw the quick spray of blood. I heard Davis scream, though it was more like a wail, like something I had never heard before. I felt a strange sensation in my lower chest, as if someone had pressed a hot iron against me, then tried to dig the sharp end of that iron into my burning flesh. And I remember falling down hard in the sand myself.
Then there was bedlam. Three more shots, to the best of my count, though my hearing might have failed me, and the dull thump I heard as my body hit the ground may have meshed with the shots and shouts. Huge men rocketed across the fairway and into the sand trap, diving over the president, then squatting low and carrying him between their hulking bodies to an ambulance that had suddenly appeared beside the green.
Paramedics were racing all around. I remember this because one of them kicked sand in my face as he ran toward Hutchins, and I wondered, Is this how I'm going to go, surrounded by rescue workers, choking on sand, bleeding to death on the nicest golf course I'll ever play?
Finally, three rescue workers slammed a stretcher down beside me and picked me up. In the distance there were screams, though they seemed to melt away as air rushed into my ears while the men ran me toward the ambulance. When I got there, they were loading Hutchins inside, and he was still conscious. I heard him, livid, tell one of the Secret Service agents: 'This was going to be the best fucking round of my entire fucking life.'
It's odd to say this, but the next thing I recall is my father standing over me-odd because my father is dead. He was with Gus Fitzpatrick, his fellow worker in the press room, who pulled a sheet across my chest, smoothed it out, and told me I was going to be fine. Then I heard a phone ringing-a loud, cutting ring that must have jarred me out of a deep sleep. You hear a phone, no matter where you are, no matter what has happened, and the reaction is always the same. Barely awake, I remember reaching for it, and as I lifted my arm, I saw, with horror, that needles, tubes, and wires extended up my forearm to my biceps, and there were ominous, blinking machines all around me. Still I reached, reflexively, and as I got my hand to the phone, a middle-aged nurse, breathless, appeared at the end of my bed, muttering, 'Who could be calling this line?'
When I had the receiver in my hand, I found I couldn't speak, my throat still thick with the remnants of a long sleep. On the other end, there was the proper, crystal-clear voice of what sounded like an elderly gentleman, but not someone even remotely frail.
'Mr. Flynn, is that you?' he said.
I couldn't speak. I struggled to clear my voice and summoned the energy to mumble a rather warped 'Yes.'
'Mr. Flynn, I want you to listen carefully to me,' he said. 'Nothing is as it seems. Do not believe anything that they tell you. There are strange, complex motives involved in this shooting. I will call you again soon.'
He hung up without my saying another word. The nurse, oddly exasperated with me, snatched the phone from my hand and slammed it down, then yanked the cord out of the wall. More gently, she pushed my head back against the pillows and stuck some sort of paper thermometer into my mouth. I had never been in a hospital before, but from watching television, it seems that they are always doing that, taking your temperature, health care workers as pollsters. I remember her departing, distant steps, the soft squeak of her rubber-soled shoes on the hard floor. Then I remember floating on a raft in a bobbing sea, very much alone, finally asleep.
two
Somebody was poking me in the shoulder. As I slowly opened my eyes, I saw Peter Martin, Washington bureau chief of the Boston Record, quickly backing up from my bedside.
