“There are some interesting loose ends,” said Frey. “Before he died, Jerry received some e-mails that we’d like traced to the source.”
Frey reached into his jacket pocket and took out two pieces of white paper, which had printouts of the e- mails. Both e-mails had a Yahoo return address, and there was standard header information.
“The e-mail address has been falsified,” said Frey. “It originated somewhere overseas. It says Vietnam, but we think that’s false. We’d like to know from where, of course.” Rubens took the paper. Among the Secret Service’s lesser-known duties was the investigation of identity theft, and the agency had its own array of computer experts. If they couldn’t trace it, Rubens thought, the message must be suspicious.
“We don’t have the e-mails that Forester sent,” added Frey. “I’m afraid we don’t know whether that is significant or not. He worked on the road a lot, and routinely would have ‘shredded’ sensitive information on his laptop. The e-mail would have been erased.”
Rubens looked at the first e-mail.
Sir:
The business was a long time ago. All information long gone.
The second e-mail was much the same:
Sir:
I cannot be of assistance. Please.
“The business?” asked Rubens.
“I have no idea what it means. The e-mails seem to have come as he was investigating the threat made against Senator McSweeney. That e-mail was tracked to a library just outside Baltimore, where someone used a public-access computer.
But we couldn’t find a connection. Forester looked at constituents and other people who may have had a beef with the senator.
Doesn’t look like he found a link. He was still checking into it — he was going back to the area where McSweeney first served as assemblyman when he died.”
Rubens folded the e-mails and placed them into his pocket.
“Did you know the agent very well?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. I broke him in. He was a good man.”
Before Rubens could find a way to tactfully suggest that Frey’s opinion might be clouding his judgment, the Secret Service director’s phone buzzed.
He answered it, and immediately his face turned grim.
“I’m on my way,” he told his caller after listening for a few moments.
He snapped off the phone and turned to Rubens.
“We’ve just had a report of shots fired at Senator McSweeney. I’ll need to get to my car.”
9
The target moved at the very last moment, complicating the shot, but the shooter stayed on mission, pulling his finger steadily and smoothly against the trigger. The roar of the gun in the closed room was greater than he’d expected, but the recoil curiously less. The bullet sailed true, a perfect shot.
He had no time to think about these things, however; the entire enterprise had been carefully timed, and to make his getaway cleanly he had to leave immediately.
In the stairs on the way down, his heart double-pumped.
It was a brief clutch, nothing more than a hiccup — a reminder of his age, nothing more. Rather than slowing down, he doubled his pace: he was too old to fail now. The chance to succeed would not come again.
The door slapped behind him as he made it to the street. He heard sirens the next block over. Quickly, the shooter slipped the steamer trunk with the rifle into the side door of the minivan, then slammed the door shut. The motor, started by remote control as he came down the steps, was already humming.
He fought against the instinct to press his foot too firmly on the accelerator. When he reached the corner, he stopped, signaled, then carefully pulled out into traffic.
Ten minutes later, he was on the Beltway. Only then did he give in and press the button for the radio.
The first report made his heart double-pump again.
“Senator McSweeney has been shot in Washington, D.C., just outside the Capitol Building!” said the announcer breathlessly.
The fact that the reporter had gotten the location wrong should have tipped the shooter off, but for the next few miles he drove in a kind of fugue state, believing that everything had gone wrong.
And then a different reporter came on, one who was actually at the scene.
“The senator appeared to be unhurt,” said the reporter.
“He was immediately taken into Brown’s Hotel, where he was to be the guest of honor at a campaign fund- raiser. I was just arriving myself. Let me repeat, Senator McSweeney appears to be OK.”
Thank God, thought the shooter. Thank God.
10
McSweeney resisted until he realized that his bodyguard was trying to drag him into the hotel, away from the chaos and commotion on the street.
“I can do it myself,” he muttered, struggling to get to his feet.
McSweeney tripped over the carpet as he came through the door and flew into the lobby, crashing against one of the hotel workers before regaining his balance. People were ducking or cowering or simply standing in dazed silence, unsure what was going on.
“Down, we’re going down, through this door,” said the Secret Service agent next to him. “Steps. Watch the steps.” McSweeney’s lungs were gasping for air by the time he and the agent reached the bottom landing. They turned left, entered another hallway, then went into a room at the right.
The Secret Service agent, face beet red, stood by the door, pistol out.
“Why are we here?” McSweeney asked the Secret Service agent.
“Please, Senator, until the situation is secure.”
“Why are we in this room?”
“It’ll just be a moment. It’s under control.” McSweeney reached into his pocket for his phone.
“Sir, please — no communications until we’re sure everything is copasetic,” said the agent. “Just to be safe.”
“My wife is going to be worried.”
“It shouldn’t take very long.”
McSweeney put the phone back reluctantly. “Who shot at us?”
“I don’t know, sir,” said the agent. He put up his hand, then held it over his ear, obviously listening to something on his radio.
McSweeney’s phone began to buzz. He checked the caller ID window on the phone and saw that it was Jimmy Fingers. McSweeney flipped it open despite the bodyguard’s frown.
“I’m OK, Jimmy,” he told his aide. “The fucker missed me.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, thank God! Do you know the radio just said you were dead?”
“Well, I’m not.”
“We’ll want to get a statement out right away.”
