Target of Opportunity td-98

by Warren Murphy

  The director stared at the buzzing receiver in his hand.

  "Damn! He hung up on me."

  "I will be taking over this office for the remainder of the crisis," said Harold Smith.

  The director jumped out of his seat. "You can't fool me, Smith. You're not Secret Service. You're CIA. You have spook written all over your smug face."

  "Before you go," Harold Smith said crisply, "have the latest reports come in from the FBI forensics lab?"

  "On my desk, damn you," said the director.

  At the door he paused to snarl, "At least the President is showing some good sense."

  "Yes?"

  "He asked Secret Service Agent Capezzi to stay on board. He's our best man."

  Smith nodded and the door closed. He went to the desk, skimmed the reports and immediately phoned the FBI crime lab.

  "This is Smith, temporarily in charge of the White House Secret Service detail. Why hasn't the collar of the Socks double been sent over here as requested?"

  "We found something unusual and we're analyzing it."

  "I am on my way," said Smith.

  A WHITE HOUSE cart whisked Harold Smith to FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. His Secret Service ID got him into the crime lab where whitesmocked forensics agents were puzzling over the collar that had been taken off the Socks double after it had been shot dead.

  "It's an ordinary collar in all outward respects," an FBI agent was saying as Smith joined the circle of tight-faced men. "It's red leather with hollow tin studs all the way around. You can buy one in any five-and-dime or pet store in the nation"

  "Then why is it unusual?" asked Smith.

  "Inside each stud is a tiny reservoir. See these pinholes?"

  Smith nodded.

  "Nozzles. One to a stud. And inside, a tiny heating element. I mistook them for a manufacturing defect until I put one under the microscope. The workmanship is exquisite. Evidently a liquid was contained in the studs."

  Another lab man said, "It was reported that before the subject cat went crazy, it hissed and began sniffing itself. Someone triggered the collar by radio control, vaporizing its contents, and the cat inhaled the resulting gas."

  "What kind of gas?" Smith asked.

  "We're still working on that. But there's more." The agent brought up a black ball the size of a marble that hung off the lower end of the collar in lieu of a cat tag. He pressed a catch, and the black ball popped apart, revealing a tiny black lens.

  "Miniature spy camera and transmitter. Whoever sent this cat into the White House grounds was recording everything it did from a cat's-eye view. "

  "Strange," said Smith, frowning severely.

  "We suspect a steroid or mind-altering substance. The cat was not rabid. The brain scan was normal. But something made it wild. A chemical would explain everything it did."

  "But not how strong it became," said Smith.

  "Sir?"

  "When you have the substance in the studs identified," he said, "phone me at the White House. Report to no one else."

  REMO WILLIAMS was walking the White House grounds feeling strange.

  It wasn't just the fact that he was patrolling the North Lawn virtually in camera range of the stillbarred White House press corps that made him feel strange, although that was a good start.

  He had come out when Secret Service Agent Vince Capezzi reported for duty. That gave Remo a chance to check out the White House grounds. There was no telling what might crop up next.

  It was a cool December day, yet Remo felt uncomfortably warm. It was the suit. He was not used to wearing so many layers of clothes. The discipline that was Sinanju had given him near total mastery over his own body, and even in the most bitter weather he was comfortable in his usual uniform of T-shirt and chinos.

  It had been even worse in the well-heated White House.

  Out here it was just annoying. Remo had grown used to the way his skin acted like a giant sensory organ. The pressure of an approaching attacker or the advance edges of the shock wave of a bullet were things his bare forearms alerted him to-sometimes before his other senses kicked in their warnings.

  A full night of guarding the President had made him itch to get out. It was not his kind of duty. He was more of an in-and-out guy. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. Give me a target, and I'll do the job, Remo thought. Pulling bodyguard duty isn't my style.

  Chiun had done his job too well. Maybe Remo had to be an assassin. Maybe it was so deeply ingrained in his nervous system that there was no avoiding it.

  The White House press corps was on the sidewalk in front of the White House filming a National Parks Service crew erecting the thirty-foot-tall Maine blue spruce that was to be the centerpiece of tonight's Christmas-tree lighting. A blue crane held it suspended over its steel base, and they were maneuvering it down by hand.

  All around the tree folding chairs were arrayed before a podium still under construction. The workmen going about their work tried to ignore the shouting of the press.

  "Is the President alive or dead?"

  "Who is trying to kill him-if he's still alive?"

  "Can you give us the full name and Social Security Number of the impostor President now occupying the White House?"

  The workmen pretended not to hear.

  "Is your silence a no-comment? Or are you ignoring us?"

  "They're ignoring you," Remo said, immediately regretting it. The press turned their attention to him.

  "Why has the President fired his Secret Service detail?" a reporter shouted.

  Remo said nothing.

  "Is the Vice President in charge, or the First Lady?"

  Remo started to walk away.

  "Can you at least give us a no-comment so we have some audio for airing?"

  Sticking his thumbs in his ears, Remo wiggled his fingers and tongue at the press.

  As Remo drew near the East Wing of the White House, he felt a vague pressure on the small of his back. As soon as the feeling hit, he ducked behind a huge red oak tree.

  When the bullet his subtle senses expected did not come, Remo knelt and peered up through the high branches.

  Up on the roof of the Treasury Building, something moved.

  Remo whipped off his sunglasses, making sure his face was turned away from the cameras, so he could see more clearly. Sunglasses were a hindrance to someone whose eyes took the natural sunlight and used it to full advantage for seeing.

  Up on the Treasury Building roof, the unmistakable silhouette of a man with a scoped rifle skulked. It had been the sniper laying the cross hairs of his scope on his back that had tripped Remo's assassin's reflexes.

  "Damn," said Remo, looking toward Pennsylvania Avenue. He could flash across East Executive Ave. and ascend the classical Greek Treasury facade in less than ninety seconds. But not with the press crawling all over the place. All those cameras couldn't help but track him, no matter how fast he moved.

  Then a White House car came slithering out of the parking garage, and Remo ran to intercept it. All White House vehicles were equipped with running boards and wide rear bumpers for the convenience of Secret Service agents. Without breaking stride, Remo ran parallel to the left running board and hopped aboard. His weight didn't even compress the suspension springs.

  Remo rode the big black vehicle through the White House gate and onto Pennsylvania Avenue. No one questioned him, but the press, seeing a Secret Service agent clinging to the vehicle, jumped to a hasty conclusion. They thought the President was slipping out of the White House.

  They gave chase. As the car turned onto Madison Place, Remo casually stepped off and made for the Treasury Building. He looked back once. Not a single camera was tracking him, he saw.

  "Two birds with one stone," he said.

  Grinning tightly, he went up the broad staircase of the Treasury Building and kept going. The façade carried him up to the roof, and not the other way around. Some of it was momentum, some the steely strength of his fingers and toes. All of it was Sinanju.<
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  On the roof Remo fixed his target and moved on him with the stealth of a ghost.

  The sniper was wearing a blue-black windbreaker and crouched low. From time to time he swept the White House with his rifle, sighting through the scope as if scoping out a bit.

  Remo slipped up on him and took his skull in one hand and the rifle barrel in the other. He brought them together, and they made a hollow thunking before the sniper started rolling on the roof, holding his head in his hands.

  Remo examined the rifle. It was no Mannlicher-Carcano, but a modern Beretta. Holding the stock in one hand and the barrel in the other, Remo flexed his wrists in opposite directions.

  The rifle made a grunk of a sound and shattered like painted glass.

  "Time for straight talk, pal," Remo told the man on the roof.

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "Secret Service. The jig's up."

  "You idiot, I'm Secret Service, too!"

  "Nice try. But I don't buy it."

  "Check my wallet if you don't believe me."

  Remo set one foot on the man's chest, emptying his lungs of air with two quick pumping motions of his leg. The man made a bellows sound, then turned green and glassy eyed.

  Remo pulled the wallet, and it fell open, revealing a gold Secret Service badge.

  "What the hell were you doing up here with a rifle?" Remo demanded, removing his foot from the man's chest and tossing the wallet on his breastbone.

  "I'm a countersniper, damn it. You should know that."

  "I'm new at this."

  Remo hauled the Secret Service agent to his feet.

  "The director thought it would be a good idea to place a man up here in case there was more trouble. I can take out any subject trespassing the White House grounds from up here."

  "Makes sense." Remo grunted. "Countersniper, huh?"

  "That's right. What are you?"

  "Me," said Remo. "I guess you could say I'm a counterassassin. "

  "Never heard that designation."

  Remo grunted. "It's new. I'm the prototype. Sorry about the rifle."

  The Secret Service countersniper looked down at his disintegrated weapon and blurted, "What'd you do to it?"

  "I countered it," said Remo.

  When the agent looked up, he saw that he was alone on the roof.

  Ten minutes later Remo was back in the White House grounds, whistling "Deck the Halls." He felt good about himself again. He just hoped the feeling would last.

  Chapter 25

  In her office at ANC News Washington headquarters, Pepsie Dobbins was reviewing video of the past twenty-four hours of the network's Presidential coverage.

  There was a lot of it. Virtually every step of the President's travels from the White House to the JFK Library in Boston was covered in excruciatingly boring detail. And that was only ANC footage.

  The reason was simple. Ever since Dallas, the networks were determined to capture the next Presidential assassination on tape or film. One confiscable Zapruder film was enough. So whenever the President traveled, the press filmed every mile and rest stop. It was called "the body watch."

  Thus, Pepsie had a virtually unbroken chain of film up until the chaos at the JFK Library, after which the press had become the frightened tail of a very desperate comet, and all footage after that consisted of white-faced reporters asking breathless questions of off-camera anchors and vice versa.

  A full morning of reviewing footage revealed nothing significant.

  "So why does the Director want footage?" she muttered to herself.

  Buck Featherstone poked his head into the office and whispered, "There's some guy named Smith here wanting to see those tapes you're looking at."

  "Did you say Smith?"

  "I did."

  "Did he say who he was with?"

  "He flashed a Secret Service badge."

  Pepsie frowned. "Probably not that Smith."

  "Couldn't hurt to ask. He's coming this way."

  Pepsie grabbed her minicassette recorder off her desk, thumbed the Record button and dropped it into a desk drawer, which she did not close.

  A gaunt-faced man with white hair stepped in and said, "Ms. Dobbins?"

  "Of course," said Pepsie, wondering what kind of a stiff wouldn't recognize her famous face.

  "Smith. Secret Service."

  "I never reveal my sours, so you can forget it," Pepsie snapped. "My lips are sealed."

  "I am here to review the tapes of yesterday's Presidential coverage," Smith said stiffly. "Your news director has given his permission."

  "Oh," said Pepsie, sounding vaguely disappointed.

  "I would like privacy."

  "Then you're going to have to wait until I'm through."

  "This is a national-security matter. I must ask you to leave."

  "Suit Yourself," said Pepsie, half closing the drawer and exiting the room. "Feel free to use the telephone if you need to."

  "Thank you," said Smith, dropping his lanky frame into Pepsie's chair.

  Harold Smith frowned at the stack of half-inch videocassettes. It was criminal how much tape the networks consumed and wasted on trivia. Examining the labels, he sorted the death-watch footage from those of the assassination attempt itself.

  Smith popped the tape marked JFK Shooting into the deck, his mouth thinning over the irony of the label.

  The footage was raw and unedited. Of course, only the gruesome head shot had been aired, which was the main reason Smith had been making the rounds of the networks all morning. Perhaps some clue could be gleaned from the unaired tape stock.

  Smith watched the decoy Secret Service agent step out of the Presidential limousine six times before he spotted something strange in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

  Rewinding the tape, he hit the Pause button. Instantly the picture froze, wiggling in the middle as if the tape stubbornly resented being freeze-framed.

  The corner remained perfectly clear.

  Smith saw a man with a Minicam. He wore aviator sunglasses, jeans and a red-checker work shirt. The camera caught him as he was taping the Presidential car door opening. But as the door came open, abruptly he turned his camera away and seemed to be shooting something high and to the west.

  Smith hit Pause. The tape resumed. Immediately the crack of the rifle shot came, and the unfortunate Secret Service agent's head came apart.

  The cameraman instantly swung his camera toward the Secret Service agent lying facedown in a pudding of his own blood and brain matter. Pandemonium broke out, and the agent was hauled into the Presidential limousine. The cameraman was quickly lost in the bedlam that followed.

  From his coat, Smith drew a diagram of the University of Massachusetts campus and Kennedy Library complex and fixed the spot where the cameraman had been standing when the fatal rifle shot came. He traced the camera angle with a bony finger.

  There was no mistaking it. The man with the camera had swung around to film the sniper's nest atop the Science Center a full four seconds before the first and only shot came. He had foreknowledge of the attempt. His cue had been the opening of the limousine door. There was no other possible explanation for his unprofessional actions.

  Smith rewound the tape and hit the Pause button again. He advanced the footage frame by frame. At no point did the man's face show clearly. What could be seen was heavy beard stubble on cheeks that looked as plump as a chipmunk's mouth pouches. Beneath an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap, impenetrable Ray-Ban sunglasses covered his eyes. He could be anyone.

  "Why would someone film an assassination in which he is a co-conspirator?" Smith muttered.

  There seemed no logical answer, so Smith ejected the tape and returned it to its black plastic case.

  Exiting the office, he told a loitering Pepsie Dobbins, "I am confiscating this tape."

  "Which one?" asked Pepsie.

  "National security forbids me from answering, but here is a receipt."

  Pepsie accepted the receipt and said, "Good luck."<
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  Smith said nothing as he left the building.

  After he was gone, Pepsie hissed, "Did you get him?"

  "Yeah," said Buck Featherstone, popping up from behind a row of steel file cabinets. "I shot through the crack between these files. Hope he comes out okay."

  "Let's see what my tape recorder tells us."

  Pepsie listened to her minicassette recorder play back the sound of Smith popping videotapes in and out of the office deck.

  "He keeps watching the footage just before that Secret Service guy gets nailed," Buck muttered as they listened.

  Then came Smith's lemony mutter.

  "Why would someone film an assassination in which he is a co-conspirator?"

  "What does that mean?" Buck wondered.

  "Let's find out," said Pepsie. "We have backup on all tapes."

  They played the JFK Shooting tape, rewinding the footage before the sound of the gunshot for exactly as long as the minicassette tape recording told them Smith had rewound it.

  "Whatever he found," Pepsie murmured, "it's coming up soon."

  They both saw it at once. Smith's muttered question gave them the hint.

  "Look at that," Buck said. "The guy in the L.A. Dodgers cap is trying to film the shooter."

  "Yeah. Before the guy even shoots."

  "You know what this means? He was in on it. That's proof of a conspiracy."

  "There's only one question."

  "Yeah?"

  "Why would he film the assassination in the first place?"

  "To prove to the guy who hired them they pulled it off okay?" said Buck.

  "Crap. That's the President of the United States. The proof airs over every network and cable news service the same day."

  "Maybe he's a video hound?" suggested Buck.

  "All I know is if we find that guy we can start working back along the chain of the conspiracy."

  The phone rang and Pepsie grabbed it. "Pepsie Dobbins."

  The familiar soft voice asked, "Have you got any footage for me?"

  "Yeah. But I have something more."

  "What's that?"

  "A big key to the conspiracy."

  "I think we should meet."

  "When and where?"