President's assassin

The lady in question was already being interrogated by a pair of detectives. Jennie flashed her fed creds and asked the duo to take a powder. Actually, I was a little surprised when the detectives put up no fight and complied. Then again, the conditions on this highway weren't normal-not with this level of carnage, not with a federal notice to report all serious incidents immediately, and certainly not with feds falling out of helicopters. It was beginning to dawn on the locals that what happened here was something much worse than a simple case of road rage gone berserk.

Jennie asked the lady's name, Carol Blandon; her age, sixty-one; her address, Montgomery, Maryland; and so forth. We didn't care about her personal info, but it's important to assess a witness before you get into it. With a shaky hand, Mrs. Blandon held a bloody bandage over her left eye, and clearly she was distressed and a little out of focus. But she appeared lucid enough, and she sounded reliable, albeit a bit crabby, which, given the circumstances, was understandable. In a soothing and respectful tone Jennie finally asked what happened.

'Oh, I… well, I was in the third lane… you know, of the four lanes. I was… I think I was… maybe, three cars behind that black car over there.' She stared for a moment at the wreck that was once poor Merrill Benedict's BMW 'I was listening to the radio… I don't remember what, and… and, I… well, I saw this man stand up in his car and stick his upper body out of the moonroof.'

This was a very significant point. I asked, 'You saw him stand up?'

'I suppose he might already have been standing when I looked. What's the difference?'

'You're right. No difference 'Actually, the difference was that Mrs. Blandon just went from being a key witness to a contextual witness in court, assuming we got to that point.

Jennie asked her, 'Do you recall what he looked like?'

'No. It all happened very fast.'

Jennie then asked Mrs. Blandon, 'Do you recall the make of car?'

'I… I don't know.'

'Color, number of doors, SUV? sedan… anything? It would be helpful.'

'It was on the inside lane and the cars in between obscured my view. I couldn't tell you anyway… I'm not good about that.'

Jennie and I exchanged glances. I said, 'Well, just tell us what happened.'

'All right, this young man was sticking out the top of the car. It was an odd sight. I remember thinking it was some high school kid.. .' She shook her head. 'Then he had something on his shoulder… not big… a tube of some sort and it belched fire.'

I said, 'Not a gun… a tube?'

She stared at me a moment. 'Yes. A tube. And then… then, oh my… well, then everything turned crazy, and I had to stop looking. Cars were banging into each other… I hit the brakes, and I got slammed from behind… and… and… oh, sweet Lord, it was awful.'

I drew Jennie off to the side, out of Mrs. Blandon's earshot. I informed her, 'She's describing a shoulder-fired antitank weapon. The guy fired out the sunroof because the backblast needs to escape or you get fried.'

Jennie nodded and pointed at an exit ramp about a hundred yards from where we stood. She said, 'That's probably where they escaped. They fired, exited, and drove off like nothing happened.'

'Right. Maybe somebody who drove on, or somebody already in the hospital, got a better look at that car. We should find out.'

She put her hand on my arm and said, 'I'll ask George to tell the cops to ask around. We'll also ask the local TV and radio stations to request public assistance.'

Jennie's cell phone rang and she backed off and answered it, leaving me to thank Mrs. Blandon for her assistance. I overheard Jennie say, 'Yeah… uh-huh. What?… oh, shit… you're kidding.'

She rolled her eyes at me and said into the phone, 'No… I don't mean, literally, you're kidding.' She paused. 'All right, just tell me everything you know… Okay, fine-everything you think you know.'

She listened for another two minutes, intermittently prodding the agent on the other end, then said, 'I see.' After another moment she said, 'At least an hour. Our helicopter's gone. No. I can't… Well, just call Mark Butterman. See if he can get over there. I want that place swept clean.'

She hung up, drew a few breaths, and then informed me, 'You won't believe this.'

Surveying the surrounding carnage, I replied, 'Try me.'

'Justice Fineberg walked up to the front door of his large and lovely Bethesda home at 7:00 p.m. and it exploded.'

'Phillip Fineberg?'

'Yeah. Know anything about him?'

'A bit. But how… I mean, doesn't a Supreme Court justice have a security detail?'

'The Supremes have their own security people, a mix of retired cops… some retired Bureau types… double- dippers. My office handles their clearances, reviews their procedures, and coordinates joint matters.' After a pause, she added, 'They're a good outfit. But they're not bodyguards. They just weren't expecting…'

'What?'

'The on-scene investigator's not sure.' She added, somewhat annoyed, 'I'm so tired of dealing with agents with law degrees. Ask a simple question and you get ten conditionals. You know what I mean?'

Right. 'Well, what did he tell you?'

'The security agent who drove the justice home said the explosion happened at the front entrance. Little damage to the home. Even the doorway's intact. Fineberg was the only casualty.'

'Shrapnel marks?'

'Yeah… like that. Some sort of fragmentary device, he thinks. The device nearly blew Fineberg in half'

I considered that a moment. 'The explosive device was placed outside the door.'

'In fact, it was' She looked at me and said, 'You're on a roll.. . Want to take a stab at the rest of it?'

'Sure' I asked, 'Was there a security system at the house?'

'An electronic system/Sensors inside, cameras outside-all very sophisticated… supposedly tamperproof. Since 9/11, all the Supremes have them.'

'Do the cameras record or just view?'

'Record. Tapes are kept for twenty-four hours, then taped over.'

'Surely the killers reconnoitered in advance.'

'That would make sense.' She thought about that and came to the appropriate conclusion. 'We'll review the tapes and see if we can pick them out.'

'After what we saw this morning, we should consider the possibility that they knew the security routine… possibly even the security setup in advance.'

'Bad assumption,' Jennie replied. 'The Secret Service and the Supremes' security detail are different organizations.'

'With a hundred million dollars, think about what you can buy. Or who.'

'All right… I won't rule it out as a possibility.'

I tried to re-create how it might have happened, thinking about how I would do it. 'When you review the tapes, you might see a delivery drop earlier in the day. FedEx, UPS-something.'

She shook her head. 'Not possible.'

'Of course it's possible.'

'All mail and packages are collected and screened for explosives and poisons. Even the stuff delivered to their homes. Standard precaution since the anthrax and ricin attacks.'

'Did I say the bomb was in the parcel?'

'Oh… you mean-'

'Yeah. As the delivery person dropped off the package, he-possibly she-planted the explosive device somewhere near the front door.'

'How?'

'Like, they bent over, one hand placed the package by the door, and the other inconspicuously put the bomb in place.'

She considered that and then said, 'That could work, couldn't it?'

I nodded. 'It's an ideal ambush site. Fineberg had to be stationary at least a few seconds to unlock the door.'