To Kill the President

by Sam Bourne

  ‘Just think. This is an animal that would have weighed over a ton,’ the PH said solemnly. ‘And do you know what happened here, my friend?’ Ron shook his head. ‘A rhino bull – a younger bull – clashed here with our rhino. But he lost. Our rhino gored him. Left him here to die.’ The PH, his skin sandy and weathered, paused, hoping Ron was getting the message.

  Then, in case he hadn’t, the PH said, ‘These dominant bulls are very aggressive, do you get me? Very aggressive. This is what they do to preserve their turf. They don’t care about any conservation programme. They don’t know rhinos are endangered. They just do what nature tells them to do. Which means killing off any rhino they see as a threat. So now you see: when you finally get to kill this beast, you’re actually doing the others a favour. You’re conserving the rhino population. Do you get me?’

  The image of an animal so powerful that it could gore another one to death, leaving a pile of bones, had almost weakened Ron’s resolve. But not quite. And now here they were, closing in on their prey.

  When it happened, it happened very quickly. They’d been walking for perhaps two hours since they saw the rhino shit. The grass was so thick, they could only see about thirty feet ahead of them. There was a noise, the sound of bush trodden underfoot at speed, and then there it was: an animal running, with what seemed to be a sword emerging from its head.

  ‘Ron! Now!’ the PH whispered. But Ron was still looking, struck by the prehistoric strangeness of this animal, so heavy, yet moving so fast on its tiny legs, in a kind of rapid, comic, glorious shuffle.

  Ron was about to explain the secret he had held back since the auction, from the moment he had raised his hand and made that bid. He was about to explain that he did not want to shoot this majestic animal after all. That he had paid the $350,000 because he had wanted the Namibian conservation agencies to have the cash to spend on game parks, wardens and rangers and the like, and because he wanted to see what it felt like to stalk and pursue a rare beast with a gun in his hand and, above all, because he wanted to prevent some other fucker having the licence and using it to kill. He was about to explain all that when he heard a shot, loud like a firecracker.

  Oh no, Ron thought. The PH has done it for me. He’s shot that beautiful animal, even though he had no right to. The licence was mine, but he couldn’t wait. It’s my fault, Ron thought. I should have told him before. You stupid, stupid man.

  It took him a while – it seemed like minutes, but it could only have been a second or two – to see that there was blood spreading across his shirt like a stain. He touched it and was astonished by how wet it was. He looked up at the PH, as if to ask: how on earth did the rhino do that?

  But now he was thrown to the ground, shoved there by the young guide. The PH had his rifle raised and was shooting. Not in the direction of the rhino, which had fled, but in the direction of the shot that had hit Ron. Spread on the ground, his hand still feeling the hot wetness of the blood across his chest, Ron understood that there was now an exchange of gunfire, bullets coming both ways. The guides were crouching, but they too were firing. Until one of them seemed to buckle at the knee and collapse, as elegantly as a gazelle.

  How long did it last? Minutes? Seconds? Ron could not even guess. But eventually he heard the PH’s voice and then the weeping of the older guide.

  The last thing he heard was the PH talking into his radio, announcing that his party had come under fire, possibly from poachers, and that one man was dead. As Ron Cain slipped into unconsciousness, he earnestly wondered if that man was him.

  38

  Washington, DC, Friday, 2.56pm

  Maggie Costello had learned one trick above all others from the years she spent as a mediator in peace talks. In fact, ‘trick’ underplayed its significance. It was the whole pastrami sandwich, as Stuart would say. If you didn’t understand this one thing, then you didn’t even have a chance of success. You might as well tell the parties to go back home, tool up and get ready to start fighting again in the morning.

  But understanding it was not enough, not on its own. You had to be able to do it, to make the mental and emotional leap.

  Put simply, you had to think like the enemy – or, in the case of peace talks, both enemies. You had to put yourself in their shoes and into their skin. You had to think of what you would want, what you would have to get, if you were them. In fact, even that was not good enough. She remembered Stuart on the subject. I don’t give a fuck what you would do if you were them. I want to know what they will do, given that they are them. He had been talking about campaign strategy, outwitting the opposition. But the same logic held.

  So this was the task now. If she was to thwart this attempt on the President’s life, she had to put herself in the mind of Kassian and Bruton and, above all, of Mr ‘no name supplied’ who, she guessed, had been tasked with the assassination itself. She needed to think of the when and the where.

  The starting point was the sort of information that, for her, would once have been a click away. She needed to pick up where she had left off when the hackers had started meddling with Liz’s heating system: she needed to know the President’s upcoming movements.

  Maggie read again the text from Liz, confirming that she and the boys were all fine, and that they were now staying safely … somewhere else. Smart girl, Liz: smart enough to know that she needed to stay off-radar till this was over.

  When they had finally spoken, Liz had breathlessly thanked her sister. ‘You saved our lives,’ she said. But that could not last. Eventually Liz would learn the truth and she would amend that sentiment: You saved our lives, Maggie – but only after you’d endangered them.

  Was it a coincidence? Had her tormentors simply detected that Maggie was using an iPad, assumed it was her own and taken control of it? Were they merely trying to freak her out, by making her apartment unbearably hot? Was it just another little ‘warning’, designed to intimidate rather than kill?

  Or was this an act of terrible escalation? Did they know that they were controlling Liz’s heating, which was faulty and dangerous? All they’d have had to do was read through the texts and emails Maggie and Liz had sent each other and they’d have known. The two of them had talked about it, it was there in black and white. It seemed ridiculous, and yet she knew what these agencies were capable of: it would have been the work of an hour or two at most. If they had an algorithm capable of searching her online life for what might terrify Maggie most, they would surely have found this pretty rapidly.

  And if they knew that, did they also know that Liz was the mother of two small boys? What kind of people were they, ready to turn on a machine they knew was likely to kill two small children? Was Robert Kassian capable of that? Was Jim Bruton? Or was this the handiwork of their recruit? Was he embarking on this mission without a moral compass?

  The only way she would find out, the only way she would be able to hold to account those who had endangered her nephews’ lives and nearly driven her off the road, the only way she would ever bring Dr Frankel’s killers to justice, would be to discover the truth behind this plot.

  She walked downtown and called Eleanor from a payphone. She told her to meet her at the usual place and advised her to do everything on hard copy. She hoped to God that that might minimize the risk. Maggie felt she had brought so much harm to so many innocents already, she couldn’t bear the idea of dragging Eleanor down too.

  Eleanor kept her waiting, unable to make a discreet escape from the White House till the mid-afternoon. But within a few minutes they were at a corner table, poring together over the document she had managed to get from a colleague – a similarly aged woman in the office of the White House Social Secretary. It was an inspired move on Eleanor’s part. Traditionally the domain of women, and dismissed as the department for tea and china dishes, the Social Secretary’s office was bound to be overlooked by McNamara or Kassian or whoever else was standing in Maggie’s way. But the one document to which it had permanent and updated access was, of course,
the presidential schedule.

  Maggie cast her eye over every event. Closed-door meeting with the Congressional Leadership. Photo-op with the Prime Minister of Greece. Roundtable with Senior Leadership of the US tech industries.

  She had to rule out all of those, though she did wonder about each of them. What if the conspirators could kill the President at close quarters? Surely that would be ideal. The Secret Service presence would be minimal. How might they do it? They could poison his food. But there was an official who supervised, and tasted, the President’s food to guard against precisely this possibility. How likely was it that that person had been won over to Kassian and Bruton’s cause?

  Or maybe the plotters planned simply to catch the President at a quiet moment and lunge at him with a knife. Impossible to get into the building with one that could cause sufficient damage. A syringe, filled with a lethal drug? Was this what the Chief of Staff and Defense Secretary had asked of Frankel, not just to write a sick note but to administer a fatal dose? Impossible to imagine, if only because to do such a thing would have required an act of suicide on Frankel’s part – sentencing himself to spend the rest of his natural life in jail – and she had concluded long ago that the doctor was not the suicidal sort.

  And nor were Kassian and Bruton. They were clearly bent on ensuring their own fingerprints were found nowhere near this crime. The safest way to do that was to stage what would look like a public assassination.

  So what public events were coming up? Four days from now the President was due to address a large rally in Cleveland, as part of his interminable ‘thank you’ tour. But the venue was an indoor arena: security would be intense. No one could get in with a weapon of any kind.

  What if the assassin were ready to sacrifice his or her own life? Could someone strap an explosive vest to their chest and charge at the President? In theory, that could work. But, again, how would you ever get through the Secret Service cordon wearing one of those things?

  No. The only way was the old way. If someone wanted to kill the President and not be immediately identified as the culprit, then it had to be a shooting from distance. And that meant the President would have to be outdoors and in a place known in advance, to allow for preparation.

  She looked again at the schedule. Monday looked obvious. It was Memorial Day, with a ceremony long arranged at Arlington National Cemetery. It would be out in the open too. And surely any soldier could get in carrying a weapon. Surely that was it. No name supplied was a military man: he’d be able to breeze in with a gun.

  But the Secret Service would certainly have a procedure to prevent that scenario. They were used to securing that site, they did it every year. They would be checking everyone coming in and out. Indeed, she had heard years ago that, even at military events, the only people allowed to carry real, usable weapons were the agents of the Secret Service themselves. They couldn’t risk a member of the public rushing a soldier, grabbing his gun and taking a shot.

  Besides, she had been at Arlington twice with the last President and she remembered what some of the team had told her back then. The place was naturally protected, enfolded in trees and offering no real vantage point.

  Nothing was leaping out at her. Finally she looked at one line on the schedule she had skimmed over, not least because she hadn’t understood it.

  Eve of MD weekend, restricted event, USMCWM.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Eleanor lifted her glasses to take a better look. ‘USMCWM. Hmm. Not sure I’ve heard of that one.’

  Maggie was already keying the letters into Eleanor’s phone. The answer came a second later. ‘United States Marine Corps War Memorial. Where is that?’

  She hit a couple more buttons and now looked at a map. It showed that this was a separate memorial, in a clearing of its own, just north of the cemetery at Arlington. But far enough away that it enjoyed none of the cemetery’s natural protection. It was close to a road, Arlington Boulevard, and within a clear line of sight of several tall buildings.

  ‘Eleanor,’ Maggie said, pointing at the words on the schedule. ‘What is this?’

  The older woman was leafing through the rest of the sheaf she had brought from the office. ‘Here,’ she said, pointing at a document laid out like a grid. ‘It says it’s a private ceremony, press pool only, two cameras. Seems the President is going to be laying a wreath, taking a salute, maybe handing out a medal. No remarks.’

  A distant bell rang in Maggie’s mind. Her boss had once done something similar, early in his term: a visit on the eve of Memorial Day, a moment of quiet prayer as he weighed his responsibilities as Commander in Chief. He had gone to the Vietnam Memorial, on his own, long after dark, with no cameras. Typical McNamara: he had ripped off the idea, borrowing the veneer of solemnity, but taking care to ensure he got a TV hit out of it all the same. She could almost hear his voice: Love the whole sincerity vibe; it’s gonna really work for us.

  ‘What does this say?’ Maggie was pointing at a line of small print, underneath each item on the schedule. It indicated when that part of the document had last been modified, or when that entry had been added.

  It took Maggie a moment to understand the combination of digits in front of her. This event had only been added to the schedule on Wednesday, the day after Frankel was murdered and less than three days after the President had his nuclear meltdown in the Situation Room.

  It was hard to make last-minute changes to the presidential schedule. Very few people could do it. But one of those few was the White House Chief of Staff. It was similarly hard to organize ceremonies at a place like the US Marine Corps War Memorial. Very few people would have the authority. But one of them was the Secretary of Defense.

  ‘So when is this?’

  ‘You’re giving me one of your intense looks, Maggie, the kind that freak me out.’

  ‘Eleanor, please.’

  She lifted her glasses again and peered at the document. ‘It’s today. It says 16.00.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Jesus, Maggie. That’s now.’

  She looked up, but Maggie was already halfway out of the door.

  39

  Arlington, Virginia, Friday, 3.46pm

  Was it wrong to admit to pleasure at this part of the job? Of course he drew satisfaction in the preparatory stages – in ensuring everything was just so – but this was something else. This was no longer a job that a meticulous IT engineer or an able civilian could do. This required the skill and the eye of a marksman.

  Set back from the window, so that there would be no tell-tale barrel visible to the probing eyes of the Secret Service, Julian Garcia had arranged the hotel desk and chair into a shooting station. Getting the desk to the right height had required some improvisation involving the base of the second bed, but he was satisfied with it.

  He peered into the night scope. The hessian canopy and screenings had gone up several hours ago, as he had been told they would. It was standard Secret Service procedure for a location of this kind, an attempt to enclose the event – and deny a clear line of sight to any of the surrounding buildings. Looking through the infra-red sight now, Garcia could see a series of white shapes: the White House advance team, making sure everything was in place.

  He had been down there earlier today, happy to be taken for a tourist. With his cap down low, and avoiding being caught in any photographs, he had been among the small, polite crowd shuffling reverentially around the US Marine Corps War Memorial just north of Arlington National Cemetery. It was impressive, no doubt about it. The sculpture of those six Marines, forever planting the flag at Iwo Jima, mounted on a deep base of polished black granite: it had required no acting on Garcia’s part to bow his head in respect to those who had fallen in all the battles commemorated on this spot. He looked at the words, etched in gold, and he believed them. Uncommon valor was a common virtue.

  He had stepped back, identifying the spot just in front of the memorial where he had been told the target would stand. As promised, there was a tiny square of bl
ack tape on the ground, invisible if you weren’t looking for it, to mark the place where the subject would shake hands and receive a handful of representative honourees of the Marine Corps, current and former. Nothing unusual in that: the President knew he had to hit his mark if he was to give the cameras their best angles. But it helped Garcia enormously.

  The other elements of the day’s work had gone smoothly. Hernandez had marshalled all his strength and taken a cab, alone, to the Virginian Suites hotel, where he’d checked in that morning. He had secured the third-floor room that Garcia had earlier identified as the ideal choice and which Hernandez had requested in advance by phone. He had been carrying a bag that looked appropriately heavy.

  Garcia had made his way there using the rear entrance and service elevator. He wore workman’s overalls and carried two big bags and was confident that, even if he had been seen, he had not been noticed. When he arrived, he found Hernandez stretched out on the bed, dozing lightly. Garcia had noticed that, on the nightstand, were several packets of tablets. The sight of that futile medicine made him grieve for his friend.

  Now Garcia looked through his scope again. The distance was three hundred and forty-four yards, just as he had planned.

  He checked his watch. Not long to go now.

  ‘Please, there’s a very big tip for you if you can drive as fast as you can.’

  It was 3.53pm. The driver was speeding down the E Street Expressway, not as fast as Maggie would like, but as fast as he would go short of Maggie producing a gun and holding it to his temple.

  She was on the edge of the back seat, leaning in towards him, so that her head hovered by his shoulder, filling the space between the driver’s and passenger seats, her mouth close by his ear. She wanted her instructions to be heard the first time, without repetition. The driver, who had the flag of Ethiopia dangling as a pennant from the rearview mirror, was rattled, she could see that. He thought his passenger might be crazy. She didn’t blame him.