"Yes."
"You know, I have a hard time believing that."
Smith made no reply, so the President said, "It's kinda ironic that the Chief Executive who sanctioned covert assassination as an instrument of domestic order and foreign policy got assassinated himself."
Smith remained quiet, making the President of the United States feel as if he had been talking nonsense and not something close to his heart.
"How do I compare with him?" he asked at last.
"Mr. President, I knew that President well."
"Yes?"
"You are not that President."
And in the bright darkness of the White House theater, the President sank unhappily into his seat.
Chapter 19
Pepsie Dobbins was working the phone in her Georgetown town house, with her free forefinger jammed into her free ear.
Across the room Aloycius X. Featherstone was droning into a tape recorder. In between calls, Pepsie unplugged her eardrum and tried to follow along.
". . . after the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba went blooey, Kennedy was quoted as saying he was gonna smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds. Unquote. He fired the director of the Agency, which was Allen Dulles, along with a certain General Cabell. The thing to remember here is that while Dulles may have been the chief conspirator, Cabell's brother was key man. Why? It's very simple. Cabell's brother just happened to be mayor of Dallas in those days. Here, the plot, as they say, begins to thicken ...."
A voice said hello in Pepsie's telephone ear, and she said, "George? This is Pepsie. What do you hear?"
"That you've been canned, for starters."
"No, I mean about the attempt on the President's life."
I don't know anything about that, but there was a big commotion going on the White House lawn not an hour ago."
"What kind of commotion?"
"A Secret Service beef. They took a guy out on a stretcher covered by a sheet."
"Someone died?"
"Not when you consider where they sent him. St. Elizabeth's."
"Isn't that the mental hospital the Secret Service is always sending people who make threats against the President?"
"Exactly. They don't send dead or wounded to St. Elizabeth's, only psych cases."
"Maybe a Secret Service agent flipped out."
"They're showing footage on CNN if you want to check it out."
"Thanks, George."
Pepsi hung up and grabbed her TV remote. CNN came on.
While she waited for the top-of-the-hour Headline News, Pepsie listened to Buck Featherstone.
"Mayor Cabell ordered the Dallas PD to botch the investigation, and tipped them where to find Oswald. The shitbird Marine Oswald, not the CIA Oswald who wasn't really Oswald. But Hidell-"
Featherstone looked up and saw Pepsie watching a silent TV
"You with me so far?" he asked.
"Is the tape still running?"
"'Yep."
"Then I don't need to be with you."
"Shouldn't you be taking notes or something?"
Pepsie shook her short shag. "Tonight when I go to sleep, I'm going to play your tapes and absorb it all in my sleep. That's how I learn foreign languages."
"What languages do you know?"
"English mostly. Never mind. Keep talking."
Buck shrugged. "Hidell, as I see it, was the CIA triggerman on the hit team. Who were the others? No one knows. Maybe they were CIA, maybe mob, maybe Cubans. Maybe one of them was the real Oswald. Anyways, it was Mayor Cabell who sicced the Dallas police on Oswald to throw suspicion off Hidell. It's a well-documented fact that-"
When Headline News came on, Pepsie turned up the sound so loud Buck stopped talking and watchers, too. She hit the Record button on her VCR remote as a precaution.
"In the still-unexplained aftermath of the attempt to assassinate the President of the United States this morning in Boston, the White House has ordered the White House press corps off the executive mansion grounds, and staff have been furloughed early. Despite official denials, rumors have abounded all day that the President was gravely wounded-a story compounded by a still-unexplained commotion involving the Secret Service when Marine One landed at two o'clock this afternoon.
"Within the hour the President put in an unexpected appearance on the North Lawn. Cameras caught the Chief Executive as he was apparently attempting to coax an unidentified individual out of the fountain."
Murky footage rolled showing the President at the fountain. Without warning, a man in jungle fatigues jumped out and toppled the President. The rest of it was an indistinct blur in the darkness of the White House lawn.
"The President was reportedly unhurt in the attack, and his assailant was removed to an undisclosed location," the news reader continued. "At this hour there is no word on his condition. This incident has fed further fuel to a firestorm of rumors of a conspiracy to assassinate the President-rumors the White House explicitly denies.
"In Hollywood, a spokesman for film director Hardy Bricker claimed today that the attack of the President strikingly evokes Dallas and called for emergency legislation authorizing the release of still-classified..."
"Turn that up. I want to hear this," Buck said.
The phone rang, and Pepsie muted the TV instead.
"Yes?" she said into the phone.
"Pepsie Dobbins?" asked a muffled female voice.
"Yes?"
"I can't identify myself, but if you want a story that will get you back into the good graces of ANC, you should go over to St. Elizabeth's and ask to see Gila Gingold. "
The line went dead.
"Who was that?" Buck wanted to know.
"I'm not sure, but it sounded like the First Lady. She sometimes leaks stuff to me."
"What did she say?"
"She said it was Gila Gingold who's at St. Elizabeth's."
"That doesn't seem plausible," said Buck.
"You should talk," snorted Pepsie. "Get your coat and camera. We're looking into this."
"Can't it wait? I want to hear what Hardy Bricker says. He's my hero."
"Get a new hero."
CONGRESSMAN GILA GINGOLD sat at his desk in the Capitol Building trying to decide whether to paint the kronosaur gray green or green gray when the telephone rang. Kronosaurs were giant prehistoric crocodiles, and no one knew what color they were supposed to be.
He was alone in his office, his staff having gone home. Congressman Gingold would have gone home, too, but his wife was there. She took a dim view of his fascination with dinosaurs. Wouldn't see Jurassic Park once, never mind six times, which was the number of times Gila Gingold had sat through the film, not counting video viewings. With a film that great, video viewings didn't count.
Gila was trying to get the bottle of gray-green enamel open as the ringing continued incessently. Deciding it might be his wife, the congressman from Georgia set aside the bottle and plastic-model kronosaur he'd assembled in his off-hours and lifted the desk receiver.
"Yes?" he said guardedly, because you never knew.
"Fred Flowers, BCN News. I'm calling to confirm a story that's sweeping the city."
"What story?"
"That Gila Gingold is under observation at St. Elizabeth's after an incident on the White House lawn."
"It's a crock!" Gila Gingold roared, coming to his feet. "And it's 'Gila' with a hard G. Not 'Hila.' A Hila is a Spanish lizard. I'm Gila."
"You're Gila Gingold?"
"It's Gila. Hard G, damnit!"
"Would you mind commenting on your alleged biting of the Presidential ankle?"
"That never happened, you stegosaur!" Gingold roared.
"Then why have you been committed to St. Elizabeth's? Allegedly?"
"Idiot!" snapped Gila Gingold, slamming down the phone and grabbing his overcoat. He was so mad he knocked the plastic kronosaur to the floor without noticing. When he slammed the office door after him, the array of plastic tyrannosaurs, allosaurs and
velociraptors shook on their shelves.
AT ST. ELIZABETH'S, no one in authority would talk to Pepsie Dobbins.
"Are you denying Gila Gingold has been committed here?" she insisted. "Remember, you're on camera."
They were in the office of the hospital's spokesman. Behind Pepsie, Buck Featherstone sighted through the ANC videocam lens and hoped he was pressing the right button.
"I am neither confirming nor denying it," said the official spokesman for St. Elizabeth's Hospital.
"That's no answer."
A man walking on very hard heels tramped up behind them and demanded to know, "Who's in charge around here?"
Recognizing the voice, Pepsie turned. Seeing Gila Gingold, face red with anger under his white thatch of hair, she struck Buck in the arm and hissed, "Film everything that happens!"
She shoved her mike into Gingold's perpetually red face and asked, "Congressman Gingold, what do you say about reports that you were taken away from the White House tonight after an unsuccessful attack on the President's life?"
"I deny them absolutely," Gingold snapped, voice thundering with indignant rage.
Pepsie whirled on the hospital spokesman and said, "Obviously Congressman Gingold hasn't been committed here. So why do you refuse to deny the rumor?"
The spokeman looked confused. "But-but he is here."
"Show me," Congessman Gingold said.
"This way, Congressman," said the spokesman.
"We're coming, too," said Pepsie triumphantly.
"No, you're not," the spokesman retorted on the run.
"Congressman, the only way you're going to quash this vicious maligning of your character," said Pepsie breathlessly, following Gingold down the immaculate hallways, "is with raw footage."
"Stick with me," Gingold bit out.
In a private ward on the fourth floor, they were taken to a private room where a man lay sedated. He was sleeping on his stomach, his arms hanging over the sides of the bed.
"We keep turning him over on his back," an orderly said, "but he keeps flopping over like that."
Gila Gingold strode up and lifted the man's head by his thick hair. "That's not me."
"It sure looks like you," Pepsie said.
"I'm handsomer. Vastly."
"Maybe it's your brother."
"I don't have any brother and I demand St. Elizabeth's Hospital issue a statement categorically denying that I'm being held for observation."
"According to this chart you are," Pepsie said, indicating the clipboard at the foot of the bed. "See, it says Gila Gingold. "
"I will sue this institution out of existence before I let this outrage go any further," thundered Gila Gingold.
"We're under Secret Service instructions to release no information about this patient," the spokesman stammered.
"Somebody is going to pay for this."
Pepsie lifted the mike and asked, "Congressman, do you want to make an official statement for broadcast?"
"You're damn right I do," said Congressmen Gila Gingold, pivoting to a perfect two-shot with Pepsie Dobbins.
At that moment two Secret Service agents came pounding into the room to wrestle Gila Gingold to the floor. "How the hell did you get loose?" one grunted.
"Tell them I'm the real Gingold," the congressman shouted as he straggled on the floor.
Pepsie turned to Buck and hissed, "Are you getting this on tape?"
"Yeah."
"Good" Raising her voice, Pepsie said, "You've got the wrong Gingold. The other one's still in bed."
On the bed the sleeping Gila Gingold flippered his arms and legs as if swimming through a dream lake.
It took twenty minutes to straighten it all out. By that time Pepsie Dobbins couldn't be more pleased. She had yards of tape, and it was coming up on eleven o'clock.
CONGRESSMAN GILA GINGOLD'S vociferous denial aired on the eleven o'clock news nationwide. All of official Washington saw it.
In the White House family quarters, the First Lady said, "Damn!"
In his pizza-box-strewn New York apartment, Thrush Limburger jumped up and said, "Washington, here I come!"
And in the White House subbasement Secret Service command post, all hell broke loose.
Chapter 20
The director of the Secret Service hated stonewalling. It was not his job to hold information back from his boss, the President. But this was a special case. It wasn't just a matter of his job. The honor and integrity of the service were at stake.
An assassin wearing a Secret Service countersniper windbreaker had tried to kill the President of the United States and had been slain in return by a service-issue Delta Elite. Everything smacked of Dallas.
If the attempt on the President's life had any connection to the service-any at all-then the service was all but headed for mothballs. Hell, it had almost happened in the aftermath of Dallas anyway. Every agent knew that. It was the service's darkest hour, the event that haunted every agent's waking life and deepest slumber.
So when the President showed up at the command post in the White House subbasement with three of the strangest people he had ever seen in tow, the director thought fast.
"We're still developing the incoming Intelligence," he said quickly, even before the three could be introduced.
The beeping of the fag brought an agent hurrying out of his seat to pluck a sheet of paper from the tray. He glanced at it and seemed to lose two shades of color.
"Is there a problem?" the white-haired man in the gray suit and dark glasses asked in a lemony voice.
"And you are?"
"Smith. Secret Service. Retired."
"He's agreed to come back to help us out," the President added.
"Back? Where did you serve?"
"Dallas."
The director swallowed hard and hoped it wasn't noticed. Did they suspect? If they suspected the truth, it was already all over.
"And this is Special Agent Remo Eastwood, along with Chiun, who is an expert on assassins."
"You?" asked the director, looking down at the tiny Asian in the white-and-gold kimono and smoked glasses.
"You will reveal all that you know," he said.
"Why don't we start with security video of the two incidents here in Washington?" The director turned and said, "Jack."
Jack Murtha popped a cassette into a VCR, and they gathered around to watch.
"We had all the video from the different monitors edited together for easy analysis. You'll see."
The video was a kaleidoscope of agents running to and fro, trying to catch the nimble black-and-white cat that strongly resembled Socks. At first it was comical, until the cat, cornered, started attacking.
"It started off acting like a typical cat," the director narrated, "then all of a sudden, it turned lion."
The video had caught it turning on two Secret Service agents, leaping up, ripping at their throats with its teeth and hanging on, as if by sheer tenacity it could drag its victims to the ground.
"Here it looks as if it's actually trying to drag Special Agent Reynolds away, but obviously its strength wasn't enough," the director said.
The footage that followed was even more chaotic, but it showed clearly the desperate attempt by the Secret Service detail to capture the crazed cat before it could reach the President.
"As you can see, Mr. President," the director said when the footage ended, "the White House detail was clearly trying to save you from what it believed was a rabid animal."
The President looked unconvinced.
Agent Eastwood turned to the tiny Oriental, Chiun, and asked, "What do you think?"
"I think tiger."
"Say again"
"Not lion. Tiger. That cat thinks it is a tiger."
"Why makes you say that?" the President asked.
"Because if it thought it was a lion, it would have bitten those men on the rump to bring them down. It seized their throat in its jaws. A tiger brings his prey down thus. Therefore, it was not a lion, but a tiger."
Everyone looked at the little man named Chiun blankly.
"But it's a stray tabby cat," the director said.
Chiun said, "It may have been born a tabby, but it died a tiger."
No one had much to add to that, so the director signaled for the second tape.
Because it was night, the surveillance video cameras recorded night-vision images that played back a grainy greenish black.
It was clear enough to show vividly the sight of what appeared to be Congressman Gila Gingold chasing Secret Service agents across the White House lawn and later attacking the President himself. On all fours.
Once the President hit the lawn, the figures blended together.
"I count two extra people," the director of the Secret Service said, brow furrowing.
"Shadows," said Harold Smith, looking to Remo and Chiun.
"No. Run that over."
"Forget it," the President cut in. "Have that tape destroyed. It's not exactly anyone's finest hour."
After that, there was an awkward silence.
The director offered, "Congressman Gingold is under observation. Maybe we'll have some kind of explanation in a few days."
Again Special Agent Eastwood asked his companion, "What do you think?"
"That was no man," intoned Chiun. "That was a gravel worm. "
"What's a gravel worm?"
"The Egyptians of old called them gravel worms because when their eggs hatched, they resembled gravel come to life as they crawled up from the gravel beds of the Nile."
"I still don't know what a gravel worm is," said Remo.
"In some lands they are called alligators. In others, the word is crocodile."
Jack Murtha snapped his fingers. "I knew Gingold reminded me of something. He reminded me of an alligator!" He ran over and reran a portion of the tape. "Look, see the way he came splashing out of the fountain? That's how an alligator runs."
"You mean he was trying to drag me into the fountain with his teeth?" the President demanded.
"That's how they kill prey. By dragging them into the water and holding them under till they drown."
The President of the United States shuddered visibly and uncontrollably.
"What would make Congressman Gila Gingold think he was a alligator?" asked retired Special Agent Smith.
Target of Opportunity td-98 Page 15
