Cory stood up and examined himself in the wide mirror bolted above the dresser. His beard was full. Cornstarch in his hair aged him ten years. He felt sure that it would be difficult for anyone, going by old photographs, to be positive of identification. It was a risk they would have to take.
“Do you have a plan?” she asked from bed.
“No, not yet. But there’s got to be a way.”
“They are going to shoot you, Cory.” She said it without melodrama, but with a faraway, detached sense of loss.
CHAPTER 18
They purchased a 1972 Chrysler Imperial LeBaron. It had electrically controlled windows, cruise control, and a dozen other superfluous gadgets. It was a huge behemoth that got ten miles to the gallon and drove like a top. They took the Mass Pike from Springfield toward Boston, a hundred miles distant.
As with all turnpike driving, the trip was dull. At times Cory had a sense of déjà vu. The highway was like two dozen other interstates in the country and could barely be differentiated from a roadway in North Carolina or Utah.
“I’ve never been to Boston,” Ginny said.
“How could you grow up in Deerford and never go to Boston?”
“I don’t know. I never cared for the Red Sox.” He laughed. “You ever see the President?” She hesitated a moment. “I mean, besides that motorcade in Deerford.”
Cory well remembered the days and weeks that he had sat in a congressional hearing room while Orville Crescatt attacked his father. “Yes,” he answered softly. “I’ve seen him quite a few times.”
The speedometer inched toward seventy, and he eased off on the accelerator. A speeding arrest would be the dumbest of errors under the circumstances. He glanced sideways at a thoughtful Ginny.
“Do you have a plan?” she asked. “How are we going to arrange our little tête-à-tête with Liz Crescatt? I mean, you can’t just walk up to her.”
“I’ll think of something,” he replied as the skyline of Boston swam into view.
As they moved through the Newton suburbs, the traffic load increased on the narrowing highway. The Prudential Center was directly in front of them, while the Charles River and Cambridge were on the left. Immediately to their right was the mile-long urban campus of Commonwealth University. It was a sprawling school housed in an assortment of buildings. Commonwealth was one of the largest private universities in the country, and its very size would grant them the anonymity they would need.
The Chrysler passed into the tunnel below the Pru Center, and Cory gave a turn signal for the off ramp.
Ron Sawyer looked at the detail schedule attached to the clipboard on his lap and mentally computed the cost of the kiddie detail he would head for the next thirty days. The people of the United States spent over $800,000 a year for the protection of the President’s daughter.
There were three shifts a day of three men apiece. These agents were GS-12 Step Two earning $25,000 per year. On each shift two men were constantly at the side of Liz Crescatt. They walked beside her on campus, and in class, one sat by her side while a second patrolled the corridor outside the classroom. The third man on each shift was either in the apartment or holding the limousine at some convenient place. There were four additional men for weekend and relief duty. The personnel totaled thirteen agents, one armored limousine, and a number of closed-circuit television cameras to monitor and protect Liz Crescatt’s apartment.
Immediately upon his arrival in Boston, Ron made a survey of security around the brownstone containing Liz’s apartment. The Service had taken over the ground floor and installed closed-circuit TV cameras on the outside of the building, both front and rear, and in all interior hallways. While Liz was in her apartment, these cameras, monitored by an agent on the ground floor, were constantly swiveling in their relentless probing.
The limo was parked outside the building, in full view of a TV camera. It was periodically checked for tampering, and several secretly installed devices under the hood, rear, and beneath the dashboard of the large Caddy would instantly warn of any intrusion. Two Boston uniformed police officers were on foot patrol on each side of the street. They kept a constant surveillance of nearby buildings and rooftops.
It was as secure as any operation could be. Ron knew that Liz Crescatt was safe from any casual attempt on her life or any abduction. There was always the fear of a large-scale assault by terrorists. In this scenario, a large van would pull up in front of the building and disgorge a dozen people armed with automatic weapons and grenades. They would forcibly effect an entrance into the building by sacrificing some of their members until they fought their way to Liz.
The Service had operational orders for reaction to this type of attack, and only Ron and his relief man were aware of the top-secret memo that dictated instructions for reaction in such an eventuality. It was obvious to the security forces of the United States that the closest blood relative to the President could not be taken … alive. It would be Ron’s duty to fulfill this mandate if it ever became necessary. He tried not to think of this possibility.
He finished the week’s scheduling and tacked it on the bulletin board of the agents’ apartment. He scanned the assignments a final time. It all worked out. The shifts allowed Rackman to have a free weekend to be with his girl. Everything was simple enough if they only had the complete cooperation of their subject.
It was a well-known fact in the Service that Liz Crescatt was a handful. On at least three occasions in the past she had playfully eluded her agent escort and remained secreted for twelve hours before deciding to return to the White House.
The agents on duty during those incidents had been transferred to other responsibilities. The final transfer of agents seemed to subdue Liz. It was as if she felt guilty over harming the careers of dedicated men.
Ron Sawyer swore to himself that such a thing would not happen while he was in charge of kiddie duty.
They checked into a small residential hotel on Commonwealth Avenue. Cory parked the LeBaron in an underground garage and joined Ginny in the small room.
“The presidential suite it is not,” she said.
He looked around the square room. It was furnished in early American Hotel: a bulky nondescript dresser, lumpy bed, and a tiny kitchen area hidden behind a peeling screen. “It’ll do.”
They went their separate ways for the afternoon. Ginny took an MTA trolley downtown to do some needed shopping. They were in dire need of clothing and toilet articles. Cory gave her exact instructions for the purchase of their costumes.
He walked four blocks to the main branch of the Boston Public Library. In the reference room he checked the newspaper indexes and requested the microfilm reels he needed.
The local Boston papers had given extensive coverage to Liz Crescatt’s attending Commonwealth University. He quickly skimmed the papers for facts.…
Liz had transferred from Georgetown after her sophomore year. She attended Commonwealth her junior year and then took a leave of absence a year ago to help her father campaign. She had returned to complete her senior year and had a small apartment on Commonwealth Avenue. The Globe listed her address and Cory was startled to see that it was only a few blocks from the room they had rented.
He examined Liz’s photographs carefully.
They made careful love. The burns on Ginny’s legs were still tender, but the marks on her face were beginning to clear. The judicious use of makeup would hide any further evidence of her trauma from all but the most observant.
They lay next to each other on the bed. She ran her index finger over his chest in small twirling motions. “What now?”
Cory slid from bed and began to open the packages she had bought at Filene’s department store. There was a light sport coat he had suggested, with a button-down shirt and chino pants. He put on the clothing and picked up the small attaché case she had purchased. He examined himself in the mirror.
‘Yes, it worked. He looked like an aging grad student, or a teacher. The beard helped. The attach�
� case was perfect. “Now you.”
Hers was the costume of a student. She had tried to match the clothing of a hundred young women they had observed in their drive up Commonwealth Avenue, past the university. She dressed carefully, occasionally grimacing as she pulled the slacks over the still-vivid welts on her legs. She brushed her hair back and turned to face him. “Well?”
“You look fine.”
She faced the mirror with a hint of sadness. “I never went to college. I married that jerk during my last year of high school.”
“Never too late.”
“This isn’t exactly what I had in mind when I considered going back to school. What am I supposed to do tomorrow?”
“Remember the deli I pointed out when we drove by the school?”
“The one with the sign in the window, advertising New-York-style lox and bagels?”
“Right. There’s a phone booth on the wall near the window. ‘We’ll have to get its number. We’ll use it to keep in touch.”
“Basically, you want me to follow Liz Crescatt?”
“Yes. I want a list of her classes and a complete summary of her schedule. Also, she may have certain habits or patterns. Does she eat in the student union, or a local restaurant? Do you notice her talking to anyone? Any information will be helpful.”
“And the Secret Service will be with her?”
“You can count on it.”
By eight the next morning Cory was walking toward the apartment of Elizabeth Crescatt. Ginny had already called with the phone number of the pay phone at the deli. She would dawdle over coffee until he called her back.
He had borrowed dogs from three of the older women residents in the hotel. They seemed grateful for his offer to walk the animals. The dachsund, Pekingese, and Welsh corgi strained at their leashes as he walked down Commonwealth Avenue.
When he approached the block containing the apartment he saw a uniformed cop on either side of the wide street. They ambled along opposite sidewalks, constantly looking up at rooftops and windows. It was a quick scan for snipers.
A long dark limousine with government plates was parked in front of 1210. A man in a business suit sat behind the wheel and idly smoked a long cigarette. He seemed to be scanning passersby.
Cory crossed the street and walked along the grassy median that separated the two lanes of the avenue. When he was abreast of 1210 he let the impatient dogs sniff a tree.
An unobtrusive camera was mounted over the doorway of 1210. Its compact body rotated slowly back and forth as its lens swept the sidewalk and stairs of the brownstone.
Cory was sure there would be other cameras mounted in the rear and interior of the building. And, somewhere inside, an agent would be monitoring those cameras.
The dogs strained at their leashes as a young woman exited from 1210 and got into the limousine. She was followed by two older men in sports coats. The car slid from the curb and headed west, toward the university.
Eight minutes later, Cory was back in the hotel after he had returned the dogs to their owners. He dialed the pay phone in the deli.
The phone was answered on the first ring by Ginny’s low “Hello.”
“She left a few minutes ago.”
He could imagine Ginny turning to look out the window that faced Commonwealth Avenue. “I see the car,” she said in a minute. “They’re stopping in front of the College of Liberal Arts. A no-parking zone, yet.” She hung up.
She learns fast, he thought. She would be out of the deli and on her way across the street to the College of Liberal Arts. The books and notebook she carried made her one of the many thousands of students at the large university.
Ron Sawyer did not like crowds. It was an odd obsession, since much of his professional life was spent in crowds. It was his job to inspect, observe, and protect prominent men and women from the dangers of crowds and those kooks that might hide in them.
A college crowd was worse than most. The usual profiles of possible assassins were useless since they didn’t work here. Lots of men had long hair. Lots of women looked like members of fanatic Trotskyite groups or Maoist terror cells. You couldn’t get a handle on any of them.
Security had doubled since the attempt in Connecticut by Cory Williams. The idiots there had allowed the man to escape, not once, but twice. A highly trained marksman who seemed determined to harm the president was loose in the country.
A female student brushed by. Sawyer unconsciously gripped Liz’s elbow. She turned to look at him curiously.
“Something the matter?” she asked.
He shook his head as the woman continued past him. Her brown hair had several wisps trailing over her forehead. His trained eye detected a faint trace of makeup on her cheek and around her eyes. The makeup covered the last vestige of a massive bruise.
The woman had been beaten sometime in the near past. There was a hint of familiarity about her. He automatically catalogued the hundreds of photographs agents were constantly examining. Who was this woman?
She disappeared around a bend in the corridor.
“What is it?” Liz Crescatt asked again.
“Nothing.” They turned into the first class—language lab in intermediate Russian. Rackman accompanied Liz inside while Ron took up a position in the hall outside the room. He yawned. Tomorrow he would go into the class and let Rackman stay in the hallway.
The floor of their small room was a snowstorm of paper. Cory sat on the edge of the bed with his arms dangling between his knees. Ginny stood looking down at their notes with a sense of bewilderment. She brushed back a wisp of hair. “What does it add up to?”
Cory shook his head. “An impossible situation.” He bent over to gather their notes into a stack. He paper-clipped them together and placed them inside the Commonwealth University catalogue. Impatiently, he took them out again to read through their results for the tenth time.
“There’s got to be an answer in there,” she said.
“Apartment—first floor occupied by Secret Service agents; there is closed-circuit TV throughout the dwelling which is constantly monitored. Travels by government limo with one agent driver and two other agents present. In class, one agent next to her, another in the hall outside. Lunches at student union with a girl friend. Agents at a table nearby. Goes swimming most afternoons. One agent in water, the other walking perimeter of the pool.”
“What about the dressing room? She has to put on her swim suit somewhere.”
“She changes in the coaches’ room, which has a private room and shower. The agents wait outside the room’s only door. No one is admitted. She returns home in the late afternoon, attends an occasional movie, or goes out to dinner with friends. The agents are constantly present.”
“If we could get to know her socially?”
“I’ll lay you ten to one that if she becomes friends with anyone they run an FBI general agency security check. Besides, we don’t have the time. The President will be here soon.”
Ginny seemed close to tears. “It’s hopeless, Cory. There is no way we can get to Liz Crescatt and convince her to arrange a meeting with her father. It just isn’t possible, given our circumstances.”
Cory nodded in agreement. “I have the feeling you’re right.” He slammed the notes down and then snatched them up again. “Class schedule,” he read. “Monday and Thursday morning, language lab at eight in intermediate Russian. Nine, a survey of Mid-Eastern foreign policy. Eleven A.M. until noon, a course in modern American drama.” He threw the papers across the room. “Screw the notes.”
Ginny’s face lit up. “How about we write her a letter?”
“I can compose it now. ‘Dear President’s Daughter. Although I am wanted by everyone in the country for trying to kill your dad, I am really not a bad guy and want to save the Republic.’ Can you imagine how she’d go for that? I want a face-to-face meeting. It has to be that way so I can convince her.”
“We’re stuck, Cory. It’s time to admit that.”
Cory reached
for the phone to dial his brother’s number in Wellesley. He hesitated. Steve’s phone would be tapped. There was no question in his mind that they would have men monitoring his brother’s phone on a full-time basis. The trace would begin as soon as he said hello.
Ginny picked up a pad and began to make notes. “There are alternatives.”
“Like what?”
“Like what we do when we admit that there’s no way to see the President.”
“What have you got down so far?”
“Option number one, and the one that I prefer is, we forget the whole damn thing and get some fancy false identity and drop out of sight—forever.”
“And what am I supposed to do with the rest of my life?”
“Live with me.” She smiled.
“And work? What sort of job can I get without a background?”
“We’d find an answer to that, Cory. It would certainly be easier than trying to get to the most well-guarded man in the world.”
“What other great thoughts have you jotted?”
“Follow other clues. Like that guy in Toledo they call Rook.”
“That’s the only clue, and I even went so far as to look at a Toledo phone directory in the library. Not surprisingly, there isn’t any Mr. or Mrs. Rook listed. I didn’t think there would be.”
“What about the man you shot? The man who was really trying to kill the President? If you’d identify him you might have something.”
Cory nodded. “I’ve thought that one over too. I think he was carefully selected—a man whose prints weren’t on file, a man who could drop from sight without being missed, who could be bought, and who only had remote contact with one member of the Committee of One Thousand.”
Ginny crumpled her note paper and threw it across the room toward a wastebasket. She missed and turned to him in angry frustration. “Why bother with Crescatt?”
Game Bet Page 18
