The Second Assassin

by Paul Christopher

  ‘I’ll wager that I’m neither.’

  ‘And I’ll wager that it doesn’t make the slightest bit of difference to me or to most.’ She reached down and touched him gently. ‘It’s not this thing of yours that matters so much as the man it’s attached to and most women would agree with me.’ She rolled away and butted the cigarette out. ‘I think it’s time we were on our way,’ she said, rolling back towards him.

  He reached out and touched her. ‘In a minute.’

  * * *

  Shortly after four thirty they reached the stepped crescent ellipse of the granite platform holding the brooding statue of Abraham Lincoln at the far end of the long, narrow park. To the left was Michigan Avenue with its row of hotels and lofty office buildings, to the right, through the trees, were the ornate formal gardens of Grant Park and then the lake. The rain had stopped, at least for the moment, but it still dripped from the trees around the statue and wetly glazed the tall bronze figure standing eternally, head down in front of a huge bronze chair.

  Russell was there before them, sitting on the granite bench jutting from the surrounding wall of the podium, his trousers protected by a folded newspaper. Sheila Connelly had the Eric Ambler book in her right hand, while Thomas Barry walked on her left. Seeing the book in the woman’s hand, Russell stood and stepped forward. There was no one else on the podium. Behind them the park was empty except for a small black dog in the distance, chasing a ball for its master.

  To Barry he looked much rougher than the pictures he’d been shown by Holland back in London. In those photographs, taken surreptitiously from a car parked across the road from Kelly’s Hotel on Great George Street in Dublin, Russell had been bright-faced and cheerful, clean-shaven, his hair brushed back and bow tie straight at his neck. Now, rising from the bench, he looked less like a leader of men than one hunted, which of course was the truth.

  The hair was red, rising in a widow’s peak off a broad forehead, the eyes small and black as sin. His white shirt was going grey and stood open at the collar. The coat he wore was a size too small, tight across the broad, powerful-looking chest and shoulders. He had the hands of a butcher.

  He stopped on the top step of the podium as Connelly and Barry reached the first. ‘Enjoy the book then?’ Russell asked. Even with those few words the accent was there, thick and heavy as the hands. Brought up in the Phibsborough slums a short spit from Mountjoy Prison, poverty and anger his bread and butter.

  ‘Not so much as the one before,’ replied Sheila Connelly. According to her, this was the proper answer to his question.

  ‘Which would that be?’ The countersign.

  ‘Epitaph for a Spy.’

  ‘Right then, that’s you, love. Who’s the lag?’

  ‘A friend. His name is Thomas Sullivan.’

  ‘I’ve heard no mention of any friend.’

  Barry interrupted. ‘Things have changed.’

  ‘I don’t like it when things change.’

  ‘Neither do we.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘Which means we’ve taken risks enough to have you here and we don’t like press conferences with you as the centre of attention.’

  Russell’s face broke into a broad grin. ‘You’ve heard then.’

  ‘Who hasn’t?’ Barry answered. Which was true. The news report about Alfred Dinsley, British agent, filed by T. J. Devlin of the Los Angeles Times two weeks earlier had set people on their ear both in New York and in Washington. It had almost been enough to shut down the whole operation surrounding Russell, but Foxworth bucked the tide and convinced Hoover that it was worth pursuing.

  ‘There was too much talk going about,’ said Russell, still smiling. ‘The press conference was our German friend’s idea.’ Presumably the German in question was Fritz Weidemann, the playboy Nazi consul in San Francisco; the consulate was already being wiretapped by the Bureau and they’d picked up a conversation between Weidemann, Russell and a man named Hermann Schwinn, Gauleiter, or leader, of the West Coast American Nazi Bund.

  ‘It was your idea?’ Barry asked.

  ‘His and mine,’ Russell said. He came down a step closer. ‘We knew our man would be exposed and the whole thing would be put down as a hoax. Like letting air out of a tyre. Gets me off the hook, so to speak.’ Russell’s right hand slipped into the pocket of his overcoat and stayed there. He smiled in Barry’s direction but there was no mirth in his expression. ‘Now then, ‘friend,’ it’s time you told me just who you are.’

  ‘I’m an agent of your benefactors.’

  ‘Who would be?’

  ‘The Clan, as you well know.’

  ‘It’s not who I am, Mr Sullivan. It’s who you might be.’

  ‘I told you, a friend. I was sent along with Miss Connelly to see her safely home and you as well if needs be. Your face is on bulletin boards in half the precinct houses in the country.’

  ‘And how would you be knowing that?’ Russell said, his right hand still in his pocket.

  ‘Because I work in one.’

  ‘You’re a copper?’

  ‘A cop,’ Barry said, using the word carefully. ‘New York City Police.’

  ‘Now isn’t that grand? A copper to tend to the needs of a wanted fugitive such as myself. Will wonders never cease.’ Russell paused and Barry saw the hand clenching in his pocket. ‘That would go a long way towards explaining that gun you’re wearing under yon jacket.’

  ‘It would. And what good would I be to you if I didn’t have such a thing on my person?’

  ‘True enough.’ Russell paused again, the muscles in his thick jaw working, his eyes skipping around the park, looking for anything out of place. ‘With that shite culchie accent of yours you’re not long off the boat.’

  ‘Two years this July,’ Barry answered.

  ‘Left from Cork City then, did you?’

  ‘Cobh, yes,’ Barry answered, putting a Gaelic twist on the name to make it sound more like Cove.

  ‘Friends on the force to get you a job so quickly.’

  ‘Friends of yours as well,’ Barry answered.

  ‘Their names then.’

  ‘You’ll not get them from me.’

  ‘Good lad,’ Russell said, coming down a third step, standing directly over Barry now. ‘Never give a name other than your own, no matter who it is you’re talking to.’ The hand came out of his pocket and landed like a stone on Barry’s shoulder. ‘Would you be having some identification about, Mr Sullivan? Something I can see with my own eyes.’

  Barry took out his wallet and handed Russell a New York driver’s licence and a New York City police identification card in the name of Thomas Sullivan. There really was such a man on the New York police force, his identification and administrative leave arranged for by Lewis Valentine himself, the New York police commissioner.

  The IRA chief of staff examined the documents carefully then nodded. ‘Seems right enough.’ He handed the cards back and Barry replaced them in the wallet. ‘What I don’t understand is why the Clan didn’t contact me directly. They know where I am.’

  ‘Your New York contact’s telephone line is being tapped and he’s been under surveillance since you arrived on the Stavangerfjord,’ Barry answered, using the name of the ship to further establish his bona fides.

  ‘Fuck me for an idjit,’ Russell breathed, his accent rising. ‘They’re like fucking rats on fucking cheese.’ He shook his head. ‘We were sure the press conference would put them off.’

  ‘It did,’ said Barry. ‘But not enough.’ He tried to keep his face impassive. If Russell knew just how little attention was being given to him by the American authorities he’d be ecstatic. The only thing keeping any interest in him alive was Foxworth’s network of personal friendships within the Bureau’s far-flung offices and even that had its limitations. If word got out to Russell’s friends in the American Congress and Senate there’d be hell to pay. The Catholic vote was a large one and not to be provoked at almost any cost.

  The big Irishm
an turned to Sheila Connelly, studying her carefully. ‘You don’t have much to say about all this.’

  ‘It’s not my place then, is it?’ She lifted her shoulders. ‘I’m just the messenger.’

  ‘Have you any idea what the message is?’

  ‘No,’ she answered. ‘Nor do I want to know.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, ‘since it’s none of your business.’ He nodded towards Barry. ‘You and your policeman getting a leg over, are you?’

  ‘That’s none of your business.’

  Russell let out a booming laugh and a half dozen crows jerked nervously up out of the trees behind Lincoln. ‘True enough, dear. Just wanted to know if you were taken or if you’d give a man such as myself a tumble.’ Barry went up a step, putting himself level with Russell and shaking off Sheila Connelly’s warning hand on his arm. ‘I think you should apologise to Miss Connelly for your rudeness.’

  Russell’s big hand went back into his pocket. ‘Your chivalry is noted, Officer Sullivan, but believe me, your lady friend knows her place within my organisation. It’s just as she said. She’s nothing more than a messenger and she’ll follow orders from a superior no matter what those orders are. You understand?’ He moved forward, close enough that Barry could smell whiskey on his sour breath. ‘I don’t give a shit if you’re fucking her ten times a day, man. She’s under my authority, not yours.’

  Barry stared at him for a long moment, then turned away, went back down a step and took Sheila Connelly’s arm. ‘Come on. We’re leaving the bastard on his own.’ She shook him off. ‘No,’ she said flatly. ‘He’s right. I’d whore for him if he ordered me to because that’s the way of it.’ She stared up at Russell. ‘But I’d not agree to enjoy it.’

  ‘And I’d not expect it.’ Russell laughed. He lumbered down the steps and took his empty hand out of the coat pocket. He poked a thick index finger into Barry’s chest. ‘You take life too seriously, Officer Sullivan. You should try and enjoy it, especially in the company of a woman as pretty as your Miss Connelly here.’

  ‘I thought we had serious business,’ Barry responded.

  ‘We do,’ Russell said, almost absently, ‘that’s true.’

  ‘Then shouldn’t we be getting on with it?’ Above everything else Barry was surprised at Russell’s lack of tension. If their information was correct Russell was going to be making an assassination attempt against the king and queen within the next few days and here he was with whiskey on his breath. ‘There can’t be much time left.’

  Russell cocked a bushy eyebrow. ‘Less time than I’d hoped for, Officer Sullivan, but more than I need.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Saturday, June 3, 1939

  New York City

  Beyond the simple acquisition of the target John Bone knew that the two most important things involved in the successful completion of an assignment were the choice of the weapon and the hunter’s lie. With time and experience he’d come to the conclusion that the more important of the two was the lie. Weapons could be abandoned at the last minute and replaced but without the correct positioning the job was easily put at risk. On more than one occasion he’d found his own life in jeopardy because he’d poorly judged his escape route.

  In the present situation there was a great deal of opportunity for an assassin willing to give up his own life but, after a careful examination of both the security measures being undertaken to protect the royal couple and the nature of their itinerary, Bone eventually narrowed his choice to six possible sites: a location somewhere in the upper structure of Washington, D.C.’s Union Station; St John’s Church or the Hay-Adams Hotel, taking his shot when Their Royal Highnesses either entered or exited the White House; a small office building next to the South African Embassy and directly across Massachusetts Avenue from the British Embassy, where the royal couple would be attending a reception; from the opposite shore as the presidential yacht Potomac arrived at Mount Vernon for a tour; from the grounds of the George Washington estate itself after the yacht arrived; and finally, a multitude of possibilities for a concealed lie on the grounds of the New York World’s Fair in Flushing Meadow Park. A seventh possibility was the grounds of Roosevelt’s estate on the Hudson, where the royal couple would be spending the last two days of their tour. Bone preferred urban opportunities since they offered so many escape routes but it was a simple enough thing to purchase maps of the area, which he did for the sake of prudence.

  Twice since their arrival, Bone had travelled to cities about to be visited by the king and queen to observe the general security precautions being taken. In Ottawa, Canada’s capital city, the couple, having arrived two days previously, were to dedicate a new memorial to the dead of the Great War. The tall, arch-like monument sat in the centre of the city’s version of a Grand Plaza, Confederation Square.

  On one side was the post office and other attendant buildings, on another side the heavy, columned, neoclassical bulk of the Union Railway Station and directly across from it the Chateau Laurier Hotel, a spired, copper-roofed monstrosity looking as though it had been built by some overweight Bavarian prince with a passion for fairy tales. Occupying one of the turret rooms he’d reserved almost two weeks previously, Bone used a recently purchased Leica, a pair of binoculars and his notebook to record pre-arrival activities in the open square.

  On the early morning of the royals’ arrival at the memorial, security appeared to be minimal – nothing more than the erection of a few wooden barricades and the appearance of a few uniformed local policemen. Then, an hour or so after daylight broke, a large busload of red-uniformed RCMP officers appeared and took up an assortment of positions around the square, followed in turn by six or seven unmarked radio cars, identifiable by their large curving antennae, and fifteen or twenty plain-clothes men who began to mingle with the growing crowds behind the barricades. Using his binoculars he saw that more plain-clothes men were appearing on the rooftops of the post office and the buildings beside it, as well as on the roof of the railway station. Bone had no doubt that there were an equal number of men on the roof of his own hotel and, following the mimeographed instruction sheet slipped under his door by the hotel management, he was keeping his small window closed as per the order given by the chief of the Ottawa Police Department and the commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

  As Bone well knew, the truth of it was that anyone intent on killing the king and queen would have no difficulty doing so, despite their bulletproof limousines, the concentration of policemen around them and all the other security measures. In 1901 an anarchist with a four-dollar Iver Johnson revolver purchased through the Sears-Roebuck catalogue assassinated United States president McKinley and the same thing could easily happen here. For his own part, a glass cutter to take out a four-inch square of his window and an angled bench rest in the shadows could do the trick with none the wiser but once again it came down to escaping after the fact.

  By nine that morning the crowds around the war memorial were dense, a large number of them veterans in their tilted berets. The rooftops and balconies all around the square were filled and behind the closed windows of the buildings pale faces were pressed close to the glass to catch a glimpse of the royal pair. At eleven, to the fanfare of trumpets, the royal limousine appeared, the value of its bulletproofing nullified by the fact that the top was down. Behind them came the cars bearing the prime minister, the governor general and the rest of the royal entourage.

  There was a song or two played by the attending Scots pipe band, a brief service followed by an even briefer speech from the king and then the laying of a wreath. In terms of direct security Bone counted eleven uniformed bodyguards, eight men in plain-clothes who were probably from Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and two very tall men who were never more than two or three yards from their royal charges.

  The service and the speech concluded, the royals moved along a line of selected veterans, pausing to exchange a few words, then moving on. Then, in a moment of inspired madness, the queen
stepped off the long red carpet leading to their waiting car and moved into the crowds of veterans around the memorial. Almost instantly both the king and queen were lost to view, although Bone could occasionally see the queen’s broad white hat bobbing here and there among the maroon berets worn by the ageing soldiers.

  The security detail, uniformed and otherwise, were thrown into chaos. Bone watched as they struggled to elbow aside the crowd in an effort to move forward. Nothing seemed to work and for the better part of half an hour both the king and queen mingled with the enclosing crowd, shaking hands, pausing for a word or a wave until finally the queen’s personal bodyguard and several of the plain-clothes Special Branch men managed to bundle the royal couple and their entourage into the cars.

  That evening Bone left the Chateau Laurier, took a taxicab south of the city to Ottawa Airport then boarded a Trans Canada Airlines flight to Toronto, arriving just after midnight. Once again, following the detailed itinerary he’d been given, he waited in a south-facing room at the Royal York Hotel and watched as the king, essentially without protection, inspected the Queen’s Own Rifles, and with his powder-blue, ever-beaming wife did another walkabout in the crowd around Union Station just prior to reboarding the royal train and setting out for the West.

  Bone returned to New York the following day and continued to keep track of the tour through the daily news reports filed by the pilot train reporters. From their descriptions it appeared that the informality he’d seen around the war memorial in Ottawa had now become a habit. This new familiarity with the public could potentially be of use but Bone knew that it was also almost certainly making their security people more nervous and thus more vigilant than ever.

  Bone spent the next ten days going through his options, eliminating them one by one. Architecturally, the Washington, D.C. railway station offered dozens of hidden areas high above the concourse where a man could easily secrete himself with a weapon but the shot would inevitably be very high angled, which meant a very small target and almost no time at all to take the shot.