Well, he hadn't. He was about to go down.
He dropped the two children off at the Bayard-Wellington School. It was a beautiful place: fieldstone walls and rolling, frost-slicked lawns; the sort of school I would have loved to send Damon andJannie to; the kind of school where Christine Johnson ought to teach.
You could move out of D.C., you know, I told myself as I watched Jack kiss each of his children good-bye.
So why don't you? Why don't you take Damon and Jannie away from Fifth Street? Why don't you do what this rotten piece of shit son of a bitch does for his kids?
Jay Grayer spoke into the hand mike again. “He's leaving the Bayard-Wellington School now. He's turning back onto the main road. God, it's pretty out here in Jackville, isn't it? We'll take him down at the stoplight up ahead! Just one imperative: we take him alive! We'll have four cars at the light with him. Four of us to get Jack. We take him alive.”
“You have the right to remain silent,” I said.
“What the hell are you saying?” Jay Grayer turned to me and asked.
“Just getting it out of the way He doesn't have any rights. He's going down.”
Grayer offered up a crooked smile. We both understood why The good part was coming now. The only good part in this whole affair. “Famous stuff, huh? Here we go. Let's get this son of a bitch.”
“Absolutely I want to have a nice long talk with Jack, too.”
I want to kick his ass from this stoplight, all the way back to Washington.
I want to meet the real Jack.
NOBODY had figured out the assassination plot until now. Not one of us had even been close. No one had been able to solve the mystery of Jack and Jill until it was too late. Maybe we could unravel the whole mess now. A retrospective on Jack and Jill.
We were less than a hundred yards away from capturing Jack.
He was heading down a steep, rolling hill toward a stoplight.
It was a very picturesque scene. Long lens, like in expensively made movies. The light turned red and Jack stopped like a law-abiding citizen. Unconcerned about anything.
A free man.
Jay Grayer and I eased up right behind his trendy, off-road vehicle.
I could read the sticker on the rear bumper of the Bronco: D.A.R.E. to keep kids off drugs.
Beartrap was the code for our operation. We had four mainline vehicles. Another half-dozen cars and two helicopters for backup. I didn't see how Jack could escape. I was thinking ahead to the massive ramifications of the assassin's capture, and the even more shocking surprise still to come.
This was going to get worse, much worse.
“We take him down on three,” Jay Grayer said into his hand mike. He was extremely cool now, the consummate professional, as he had been from the beginning. I liked working with him enormously. He wasn't an egomaniac; he was just good at his job.
“We take him real easy,” I said.
The beartrap was sprung.
I was one of the six who jumped out of the intercept cars stopped at the innocent-looking country-road light. It was an honor.
There were two civilian cars waiting at the light as well. A gray Honda and a Saab.
It must have looked like utter madness to them. That's because it was, and much worse than it looked. The man in the Bronco had killed the President. This was like arresting Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan,John Wilkes Booth. An ordinary stoplight in northern Maryland.
I was there] I was glad I was there. I would have paid a huge admission price to be there for this.
I got to the passenger door of his vehicle as a Secret Service agent yanked open the driver's door. The two of us happened to be the quickest on our feet. Or maybe we were the ones who wanted Jack the most.
Jack turned toward me -- and he got to look right into the wide-eyed barrel of my Glock.
He got a real good look at death in an instant.
Execution-style!
Very professional!
“Don't move. Don't even breathe too hard. Don't move a millimeter,” I said to him. “I don't want to have an excuse. So don't give me one.”
He hadn't been expecting us. I could tell that by the shock spread across his face. He thought he'd gotten away clean with the murders. Thought he was home free.
Well, he had it all wrong for once.
Jack had finally made his first mistake.
“Secret Service. You're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, and that's a real good idea!” one of the agents barked at Jack. The agent's face was bright red with anger, with outrage at this man who had murdered President Thomas Byrnes.
