phrases?
Callie sat with her daughter, Amy, on the plane, and they held hands. Maybe Amy understood.
The Walden Hotel on Fifth Avenue was really hopping when we arrived. Secret Service agents were as thick as fleas on a camel. Everywhere you looked you saw guys and gals with strange bulges in their clothing talking into their lapels.
They took us to rooms on the fifteenth floor. I gave the bellboy a five-spot for putting my bag in the room, then adjusted the Colt on my hip and headed downstairs to check things out. Grafton had already beaten me to the lobby. He gave me a pass on a chain, which I was supposed to dangle around my neck. He already had his on.
“All the cool people are wearing these this year,” he said, which startled me. Grafton doesn’t often try a funny, and when he does it is so unexpected that it jolts you. I managed a smile.
Standing there in the cavernous lobby of the Walden, surrounded by people bustling about, he looked me in the eyes. “You did the right thing in Connecticut,” he said. “Just wanted you to know that I know that.”
“Could have come out differently.”
“It could have come out a dozen different ways, all of them bad and all because Khadr was there to do murder. You used your best judgment, you acted when others might have hesitated, so Khadr’s dead and Callie’s alive. Thanks.” He reached for my hand and pumped it while he gave me one of those Grafton grins.
I was embarrassed — he could see that — so we left it there.
From his hip pocket he produced a program. “This is how this thing is supposed to go. There will be precisely one thousand thirty-nine people in attendance tonight, including you and me. The staff has been vetted; the place will be brimming with law. Everyone will be seated and the doors will be closed when the president and other politicos make their entrance. They’ll go directly to the dais, and Senator Isner will make the welcoming remarks, which will last no more than two minutes.
Then the staff will begin serving the meals. The president is scheduled to speak after dinner.”
“So none of the diners will get a chance to get close to the man?”
“Oh, no. They all will. Sal Molina tells me that the president will mix and mingle during dinner, pressing the flesh. He will visit every table and shake every hand. These people paid ten grand a chair for the right to say hi to the president and be photographed doing it, so he’s going to give them their money’s worth.”
My eyebrows started dancing.
“I know, I know. Everyone on the attendance list is a big political donor, a spouse or kid or friend of a donor. The list was finalized weeks ago, and the FBI and Secret Service have worked their heinies off vetting these people. To get in, everyone has to go through a metal detector and produce a photo ID. Absolutely no one will be admitted who isn’t on the list or whose ID doesn’t match his face.”
“Okay.”
“The feds have gone over this hotel with a fine-tooth comb. They’ve vetted the kitchen staff, there will be agents in the kitchen watching the food prep and the kitchen staff has to sample every dish before it comes out into the dining room. There will be at least twenty agents in the dining hall.”
“What’s on the menu?”
“Chicken Cordon Bleu.”
“That’s chicken with cheese in it, right?”
“I think so.”
“I hate that stuff.”
“When the president finishes speaking, he’ll leave first, escorted out by a squad of agents, go by motorcade to the airport and leave for Washington on Air Force One. The motorcade into and out of the city is in the hands of the NYPD and Secret Service. They tell me it will be tight as a tick. They’ve even had men in the storm drains on the streets the motorcade will use, checking for bombs. The motorcade is out of our hands.”
“If Abu Qasim is going to do it, it’ll be here,” I said. “With Marisa watching.”
“I think so, too,” Grafton murmured. He took a deep breath and continued. “The organizers are filming everything for use in campaign ads. So, yeah, it’ll be here, so afterward the networks will broadcast it and the faithful all over the planet can see the power of al-Qaeda and Allah.”
“Got any ideas how he’ll do it?”
“I was hoping you might have.”
I shrugged. “Gas, bomb or bullet. Or polonium.”
“Geiger counters in the kitchen and at the entrances to the room. Anyone radioactive will get a bum’s rush to an isolation room.”
“Maybe nothing will happen,” I said hopefully.
“Maybe,” Grafton said, but I could see he didn’t believe it. I didn’t, either.
“I want you to escort Marisa. Stick to her like glue.”
“Okay.”
“Use your best judgment.”
I thought about that for a moment before I said, “Okay, boss.”
About that time a Secret Service type walked up, a chiseled hard-body who could have made a nice living on Madison Avenue posing for ads, and spoke to Grafton. “Your call from Russia is waiting in the command center.”
Grafton slapped me on the arm and went off with the agent. I wondered what that was all about. A million possibilities leapt to mind, too many to process.
I went into the dining room — my pass worked like a charm — looked at all the tables and the raised podium where the guests of honor were going to sit, even peeped under the table where the president was going to sit while three Secret Service agents watched. Didn’t see anything, felt like an idiot, so I wandered out and let the pros have it.
Since it was getting on toward lunch, I put my pass in my pocket, left the hotel and went walking. Ended up heading for a pool room I knew on Seventh Avenue, where I had two hot dogs with mustard and sauerkraut, washed it down with beer and played some pool with a guy who tried to hustle me. My heart wasn’t in it. I could feel the minutes ticking away, couldn’t get my mind off Qasim and Marisa. I lost twenty-two dollars, told the guy he was too good for me and left.
I strolled the streets, thoughts tumbling over themselves in no particular order. I still hadn’t figured out Qasim and Marisa’s relationship, and I knew that I was flat running out of time.
Maybe I should go back to the hotel and have a real heart-to-heart with Marisa. But what could I say to break through her defenses and get to that place she really lived?
The possibility that she was the one who was supposed to kill the president kept cropping up. Suppose she was the assassin and all this craziness and murder had been just an elaborate setup?
What if Abu Qasim managed to kill the president? That would be the ultimate terror strike, a blow at America that would have profound, unpredictable, seismic implications. The stakes were enormous, beyond calculation. Qasim knew that… and so did Grafton, and the president, and Sal Molina and Wilkins and Goldman and all the rest.
I hoped Grafton had this figured out, because I certainly didn’t.
I walked and walked, waiting, watching the hands of my watch sweep ever so slowly and relentlessly around the dial, ticking off the minutes toward Armageddon.
Abu Qasim worked carefully on his makeup before the mirror, taking his time, inspecting himself frequently. The goatee was glued firmly in place. He put wads of cotton between his teeth and cheeks to fill them out, altering the appearance of his face.
When he finished, he inspected his handiwork and compared that to the photo on his New York driver’s license. Yes, he was once again Samuel Israel Rothstein.
He put on his tux, dressed carefully, inspected every button and zipper. When he was finished, he scrutinized himself in his full-length mirror. Satisfactory.
He checked his watch. He had plenty of time. The hired car would pick him up in an hour. He had used this car service before, so they knew his address and knew him. He didn’t want to be early, but he also didn’t want to be late. Entering the hotel ballroom with the main stream of people was the best way to minimize the scrutiny he would receive at the security checkpoints.
The enormity of the undertaking before him left him with a clarity of mind he found startling. All the
