Roach nodded his head in agreement and looked at his watch. “Be back up here in thirty minutes. I’ve got a chopper picking us up on the roof.”
“One more thing, the boys over at the Secret Service have been getting beat up all day. If it’s all right with you, I’d like to let Jack Lortch take the lead on telling the
President about the radar units and the flare launcher. I’ll back him up on what we’re doing to investigate the new evidence, and I’ll let you handle the message from the assassins if you want.”
“No, that’s all right, you can handle it, and go ahead and let Lortch take the lead.”
McMahon left Roach’s office and headed back to his.
The chopper ride from the Hoover Building to Camp David took about twenty-five minutes. Roach, McMahon, and two of the director’s bodyguards sat in back. Roach utilized the time by having McMahon bring him up to speed on every aspect of the investigation. After landing, they were driven to the main cabin and escorted to the conference room.
It was just after 7 P.M. when the President and Garret entered the room, taking their spots at the head of the table. Mike Nance was seated at the far end of the table so he could observe everyone, while Stansfield, Roach, and McMahon were seated on the one side, with Lortch and Director Tracy on the other. Garret looked at Roach and in a tired voice asked, “Director Roach, do you have any new developments to report since we talked earlier?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact, we have received a message from the assassins. I’ll let
Special Agent McMahon fill you in.” Roach turned to McMahon and nodded. Each spot at the large conference table had a phone in front of it. McMahon pulled the one in front of him closer and punched in his voice mail number. “Just before we left this evening, we discovered a message left by the assassins. If you’ll bear with me for a moment, I’ll
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retrieve it.” McMahon finished accessing the message, hit the speaker button, and slid his chair back. The message started to play: “Special Agent McMahon, we know you have been placed in charge of investigating the assassinations of Senator Fitzgerald, Congressman Koslowski, Senator Downs, and Speaker Basset.
We are sending you this message because we do not want to fight our battle in the media.” Both the President and Garret looked up at McMahon upon hearing his name.
The message continued while everyone listened intently. When the tape ended with, “Mr.
President, the Secret Service cannot protect you from us.
They can make our job more difficult, but they cannot stop us from ending your life.
This is your last warning,” the pale President looked to Jack Lortch and Director Tracy for reassurance but only got straight faces and silence in return. Garret leaned back in his chair and placed both hands under his armpits to keep them from shaking. The silence was only making him more uncomfortable, so he looked at McMahon and snapped, “How do we even know if this thing is real?” McMahon responded in an even tone, “Some of our lab technicians analyzed it just before I left.
They say it has the same voice signature of the recording we received after Speaker
Basset was shot.” Garret started to grind his teeth. He didn’t like surprises, and he had no doubt that McMahon and Roach had intentionally withheld the tape from him until just now.
Through clenched teeth he asked, “How long have you known about this tape?”
“I checked my voice mail for the first time since this morning at about six this evening.”
“When did the assassins leave it?”
“At about twelve-thirty this afternoon.” Garret sprang to the edge of the table.
“You’ve had this since twelve-thirty and you haven’t told us about it?”
“The assassins left it on my voice mail at twelve-thirty, but I did not discover it until six. Considering the fact that we were coming out here to brief you at seven, Director
Roach and I decided that we would play the recording for you when we got here.”
“Hold on, back up a minute.
Don’t you usually check your voice mail more than once a day?”
“On a normal day, yes, but I was a little busy today.” Garret pointed his finger at
McMahon and raising his voice said, “The next time you get something this important, you let us know immediately! There is absolutely no excuse other than incompetency for not informing us of this recording as soon as you found it!” McMahon was enjoying
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himself too much to let what Garret was saying upset him. Leaning back in his chair, McMahon folded his arms and smiled. Jack Lortch who was sitting next to Garret, leaned forward and caught the chief of staffs eye.
Lortch gave Garret a hard stare. The message was clear. Garret looked down at his notepad and mumbled something to himself. No one spoke for a while, and then a nervous President Stevens attempted to speak. The words didn’t come out right the first time, so he started over. “Could they have shot down Marine One today?” Without pausing for a second, Lortch answered, “Yes.” In the most polite tone he could muster, Garret cleared his throat and said, “Jack, let’s not be so presumptuous. We shouldn’t jump to any conclusions until we get more information.”
Garret didn’t like anyone getting the President frazzled unless it was him. Lortch shrugged his shoulders and said, “I am basing my opinion on nothing more than the facts.
These assassins have shown an incredible propensity to plan ahead. They not only discovered which helicopter the President was on, but they forced Marine One and her escorts to fly a course they were not supposed to. I spoke with the pilots, and they said there is no doubt in their minds that Marine One could have been blown out of
