the right of Ball’s prostrate body and then, still holding Ball’s arms, pulled him up.
“Still breathing,” said Karr.
“He shot himself in the chest,” said one of the Secret Service agents who’d jumped on Karr.
“We need another paramedic,” said another of the agents, talking into the mouthpiece at his sleeve. “Stat.” Karr rolled Ball onto his back, and pulled away his blood-soaked shirt. The bullet had made a large hole in his chest, though there was so much blood it was hard to tell where exactly the gunshot was.
Ball blinked his eyes.
“Mr. Karr, this is Rubens. Is Mr. Ball conscious?”
“Barely.”
“Please ask him if he took the shot on the senator at the hotel in Washington.”
“Did you try to kill McSweeney before?” Karr asked.
“What?”
Rubens gave him the date and hotel.
Ball gave him a confused look. “No,” he said finally.
“Paramedic’s here,” announced the Secret Service agent behind Karr, tapping him to make way.
150
The e-mailed threats had several things in common: they’d all been sent by e-mails, they had all come from e-mail accounts created only a few minutes before they were sent, and they had all been sent over the Internet by a user who had found an unprotected wireless network.
And that was about it, at least as far as Gallo could determine. He sent a number of e-mail messages to the addresses used to send the messages; each contained tracers that would have helped him track down the sender’s “true” address. Not one was opened. The e-mail ser vices that provided the accounts were of little help, since the information that had been provided was quickly shown to be fake.
What else did he know? Gallo got up from his computer to give his eyes and neck a break. He started doing push-ups on the floor.
The sender had oldish laptops; the working theory was that they were secondhand and disposed of after being used.
The sender knew at least a little bit about computer networks.
The sender moved around a lot. A message had been sent from Washington, D.C., one from suburban New York, and one from Las Vegas.
Gallo was on push-up seventy-three when his phone rang.
Usually the phone meant trouble, but he was getting winded and decided to answer it anyway.
“Robby, this is Hernes Jackson. The Secret Service has been looking at the last of the threatening e-mails, the one sent to Dalton.”
“No kidding. I’m, like, working that thing right now.”
“That’s why I’m calling, Robby,” said Jackson. “A custodian found the laptop in Las Vegas, and the police tracked the own er to the Washington, D.C., area. He said he’d sold it at a used-computer meet in Washington several months ago.
When the Secret Service showed up looking for the e-mail sender, the police told them about the notebook.”
“Um, the thing is, Hernes, there aren’t going to be records of the same, right?” said Gallo. “I’m going to guess it was a consignment thing.”
“I know, but I thought you’d like to know.”
“Yeah.”
“I did have another idea.”
“Fire away.”
“You compared the e-mails to make sure they had the same author, right?”
“Sure. Didn’t really need the text compare, but I did anyway.”
Text compare was a software tool that took two or more pieces of prose and examined them for “commonalities”; it could tell whether they were written by the same person or not. In this case, the messages were so similar, the tool was superfluous.
“The constituents whom McSweeney had trouble with — can we compare those letters to the e-mails?”
“Yeah,” said Gallo. “On it.”
151
The presidential limo and the caravan of agents and aides traveling with it followed a preplanned exit strategy, racing to the highway in the direction of the airport. Though by now the Secret Service not only was in control of the situation there, but also understood exactly what had happened, they were taking no chances with the President’s life. Feeder roads were shut down, and even traffic in the opposite directions was stopped. The airport itself was locked down. Air Force One was reported to be ready to leave as soon as the President went up the stairs.
President Marcke, however, had other ideas.
“In this political climate, leaving like this will make it look exactly like I’m running away,” he told Vince Freehan, the head of his Secret Service detail, as the limo headed for the airport.
“Please, Mr. President. We really do know what’s best.”
“No, I’m afraid you don’t,” snapped Marcke angrily. “I am the President. Your job is to do what I say. Not the other way around.”
It was the first time Dean had ever seen the President mad.
It was more than the natural reaction of a headstrong leader when an underling tried to tell him what to do. Marcke was angry that McSweeney had been shot; it had been his responsibility to keep the senator safe, and he felt he had personally failed.
Dean guessed that the President was carefully considering his next move, thinking not about his own safety but of the effect of the incident on the country. While the chief of staff and the head of the Secret Service detail spoke excitedly to a variety of people outside the limo, Marcke switched on the live television feed and watched the initial reports of the incident on the local news stations.
He remained silent until the motorcade pulled onto the airport grounds.
“Find out where Senator McSweeney has been taken,” he told the chief of staff.
“Pardon me, sir, but it’s Sisters of Mercy Hospital,” said Vince Freehan. “We have secured the hospital.”
“Good. We’re going to visit him.”
“Jeez, Jeff, that’s not a good idea,” said Cohen.
“Bullshit it’s not,” the President told his chief of staff.
“Listen, if this is a conspiracy, if the Vietnamese are involved, there could be other shooters.” Marcke turned to Dean. “Are the Vietnamese involved?”
“Not that I know of, sir.”
If Cohen’s eyes had been daggers, Dean would have bled to death. Freehan began making logistical arguments about why the President should stay away from the hospital.
“I am the President of the United States,” said Marcke finally, his voice calmer than before. “The President goes where the President has to. What if an enemy thinks he can scare me into running away?”
“There’s a difference between running away and showing prudence, Mr. President,” said Cohen.
“If that hospital is secure enough for Senator McSweeney, it’s secure enough for me,” said the President.
“You still have to be in D.C. for the Ira ni an-Israeli crisis,” said Cohen. He was still arguing, but he had the
