Service had used to bring the President in.
The escape route had been established beforehand.
Beyond the glowing red EXIT sign, a long concrete tunnel led to a special visitors' parking area on the river side of the building.
Bulletproof, armor-plated cars were waiting there. What else might be waiting? I wondered. A voice in my head shouted for attention as I moved forward as fast as I could. Jack and Jill have always been a step ahead of us. They missed him Why did they miss ?
They don't make mistakes.
I was less than a dozen yards from the President and his Secret Service guards when it hit me, when finally I understood what no one else did yet.
“Change the route out!” I yelled at the top of my voice. “Change the escape route!”
NO ONE heard me shouting. I could barely hear my own voice in the melee. There was too much noise and confusion inside Madison Square Garden.
I pushed ahead anyway, desperately following the phalanx that looked like the rabble at a prizefight from my vantage point.
The smoke from the bomb had created a kind of strobe-light effect.
“Change the escape route! Change the escape route!” I shouted over and over.
We finally entered the whitewashed concrete tunnel. Every sound echoed bizarrely off the walls. I was right behind the last of the Secret Service agents.
“Don't go this way! Stop the President!” I continued to.yell in vain.
The tunnel was full of late-arriving special guests and even more security guards. We were pushing forward against a strong tide coming the other way It was too late to change the route now. I pushed and shoved my way closer and closer to President and Mrs. Byrnes. I desperately searched the crowd for the face of Kevin Hawkins. There was still a chance to stop him.
Every face I encountered registered shock. The eyes I saw were wide with fear, and they were searching my face. Suddenly, there were several loud pops in the heart of the tunnel. Gunshots!
Five shots seemed to explode inside the tight phalanx of people around the President. Someone had gotten inside the defense perimeter. My body sagged as if I'd been shot myself.
Five shots. Three quick -- then two more.
I couldn't see what had happened up ahead, but suddenly I heard the eeriest sound. It was a high-pitched wall, a keening.
Five shots!
Three -- then two more.
The keening sound was coming from where I had last seen fleeting glimpses of President Byrnes, where the shots had exploded just a few seconds before.
I shoved my body, all my weight, against the crowd and forced myself toward the epicenter of the madness.
It felt as if I were trying to swim out of quicksand, to pull myself free. It was almost impossible to walk, to push, to shove.
Five shots. What had happened up ahead?
Then I could see. I saw everything at once.
My mouth felt incredibly dry. My eyes were watering. The bunkerlike tunnel had become strangely quiet. President Thomas Byrnes was down on the gray cement floor. A lot of blood was flowing in rivulets, spreading down his white shirt. Bright red blood drained from the right side of his face, or maybe the wound was high in his neck. I couldn't tell from where I was.
Gunshots. Execution-style.
A professional hit.
Jack and Jill, those bastards!
It was their pattern, or close to it.
I waded forward, roughly, shoving people out of my way, I saw Don Hamerman, Jay Grayer, and then Sally Byrnes. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion.
Sally Byrnes was trying to get to her husband. The First Lady didn't appear to be hurt. Still, I wondered if she was a target, too. Maybe Jill's target? Secret Service agents were holding Mrs. Byrnes back, trying to protect her. They wanted to keep her away from the bloodshed, from her husband, from any possible danger.
I saw a second body then. The shock was like a low hard punch to my stomach. No one could have anticipated this terrible scene.
A woman was down near the President. She'd been shot in her right eye socket. There was a second wound in her throat.
She appeared to be dead. A semiautomatic lay near her sprawled body.
The assassin ?
Jill?
Who else could it possibly be?
