All of the Supreme Court justices, Cabinet members, and Joint Chiefs of Staff have also been accounted for. Right now it looks like the only individuals they were after were
Senator Fitzgerald, Senator Downs, and Congressman Koslowski. “I have a meeting scheduled for one P.M. with Director Tracy of the Secret Service to discuss the resources we have available to provide protection for the remaining members of the House and
Senate. I have already dispatched agents to protect the most senior members of both parties. Until we know more about what is going on, I think we should play it safe.”
Roach turned to Nance. “Mike, before I leave, I would like a minute of your time to discuss what resources we may be able to borrow from the military, such as MPs or
Marines that are trained for embassy duty.”
Nance nodded and Roach continued, “I’m going to have Special Agent McMahon take over from here and fill you in on the specifics of what happened late yesterday evening and early this morning. When he’s finished, I will bring you up to speed on the interdiction measures we’re taking. Special Agent McMahon has been to all three crime scenes this morning.” Roach turned to McMahon and nodded. McMahon cleared his throat and said, “Let me start by saying that this investigation is only a few hours old, so we don’t have a lot of specifics.” McMahon looked from one end of the table to the other as he spoke. “The first of the three to be killed, and the last to be found, was Senator
Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald’s limousine driven”
Garret interrupted, “Don’t you have a brief prepared, so we can follow?”
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McMahon looked at Roach, giving him a chance to respond, knowing his boss’s reply would be more diplomatic than his own. Roach turned to the President, intentionally bypassing Garret. “Sir, we haven’t had time to prepare a report. We will have one on your desk by two this afternoon.”
“That’s fine. Please continue,” the President responded. Garret shook his head sideways and wrote something down on his yellow notepad.
McMahon started again. “As I was saying, Fitzgerald’s limousine driver reports dropping the Senator off at his house in Kalorama Heights just after midnight. Our preliminary guess on Fitzgerald’s time of death is sometime between midnight and one—
thirty A.M. The cause of death appears to be a broken neck. We’ll know more after the autopsy is completed.”
McMahon paused for a second. “The back door of Fitzgerald’s house shows signs of being picked, and his security system was defeated on-site.
Fitzgerald’s body was found shoved into a closet in the basement. Our best guess right now is that the perpetrator, or perpetrators, were waiting inside the house when Fitzgerald got home, killed him, and then moved the body to the basement.” In a bland tone
McMahon added, “We are questioning the neighbors to see if they saw anything last night, and a forensics team is going over the house checking for evidence.”
“Agent McMahon, you sound as if you don’t expect to find anything,” interrupted
Garret again.
McMahon looked at Garret hard. “Whoever killed these men is very good. It is highly unlikely that they left any useful evidence behind.”
He continued to stare at Garret without saying anything until the President’s chief of staff looked away. “Congressman Koslowski was the next one to die. From what we know so far, Koslowski got out of bed around six A.M. and was shot in the back of the head twice. The shots were fired from a high-powered rifle and were taken from the house across the street. The house belongs to Harold Burmiester, a wealthy, retired banker. When we entered the house this morning, we found that the phone line had been cut and the back door was missing a pane of glass. Burmiester’s German shepherd was unconscious and, we presume, drugged. Burmiester was found tied up in a bedroom on the second floor.
The screen had been removed on the window directly across from Koslowski’s bedroom, and there were powder burns found on the windowsill. “After talking to
Burmiester, we’ve pieced together the following details: Just before eleven P.M. last night, Burmiester let his dog out. At this point, we think the dog was probably drugged.
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Burmiester went to bed around midnight in the bedroom where the shots were fired from. Sometime between twelve-thirty A.M. and five-thirty A.M. the perpetrator or perpetrators broke into the house, rendered Burmiester unconscious, and moved him to a different bedroom. They waited, and when Koslowski opened the doors, they took their shot.
We’re having some blood tests done on Burmiester and his dog, and we should know whether or not they were drugged by early afternoon. The crime boys are going over both houses and the neighbors are being questioned.”
“Where was Koslowski’s wife during all of this?” asked Garret sarcastically.
“Mrs. Koslowski sleeps in another room.” McMahon again attempted to ignore
Garret’s irritating manner. The coolly detached Mike Nance was observing McMahon.
Nance, a graduate of West Point and a former director of the National Security Agency, usually stayed quiet in meetings. He preferred to sit back and take everything in. Unlike
Garret, he believed a person could learn more by watching and listening than by asking questions.
With his eyes still focused on his notepad, Garret shouted out another question. “Has anyone reported hearing
