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toward the nearest highway. The nearest highway wasn't very near, so it was a
good twenty minutes before Remo reached it and another ten before he found a
gas station with a pay phone.
He called Dr. Harold W. Smith, waiting impatiently as the connection was
rerouted twice before ringing a blue contact phone on Smith's glassy desk.
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Smith's voice sounded hoarse but lemony. "Remo, is that you?"
"Yeah. What's wrong?"
"The President of the United States has been shot."
"Damn. How bad?"
Smith's voice sank to a hush. "They're reporting his death, Remo."
Remo said nothing. He was no particular fan of the current President, but in
the long moment that the news sank in, he thought about where he had been
thirty years ago when he had heard those identical words.
He had been in class. Saint Theresa's Orphanage. A nun whose name Remo had
long ago forgotten was teaching English. There had come a knock at the class
door, and Sister Mary Margaret, whose name and face Remo would remember to his
dying day, entered, more pale of face than usual. She had conferred in a low
voice with the other nun, whose face lost all color, too.
Then Sister Mary Margaret had addressed the class in a low, hoarse voice.
"Children, our beloved President has been shot. We must all pray for him
now."
And Sister Mary Margaret had led the class in prayer.
Remo could still remember the cold feeling in that classroom that day. He was
old enough to understand a terrible thing had happened, yet still young enough
to be dazed by the news.
When the word came that the young President had died, every class had been
cancelled and the entire population of Saint Theresa's Orphanage was led in
procession to the chapel. A Mass was sung. Those were still the days of Latin
Masses.
It was the first time Remo Williams had ever seen the priests and the nuns-the
only authority figures he had known up to that point in his life-weep. It had
made him tremble in fear back then, and a little of that sick, hollow
emptiness rose up to haunt him three decades later.
"Who did it?" Remo asked after his thoughts came back to the present.
"I have no information at present," Smith said, dull voiced.
"But I do. I found Uncle Sam. He was at Sam Beasley World."
"Was?"
"He got away. And I'm stuck in some highway in the middle of Kudzu, Florida."
"Go to Washington, D.C., Remo."
"Gladly. What's there?"
"The Vice President. He may need protecting."
"We blew a big one, didn't we?"
"Someone did," said Smith, terminating the connection with abrupt finality.
Chapter 7
Secret Service Special Agent Win Workman hated guarding the President of the
United States.
He hated it every time the President with his two giant 747s blew into town
loaded down with communications gear, armored limousines and an endless list
of demands on the Boston Office.
Win Workman worked out of the Boston district office of the Secret Service. He
liked working out of Boston, where his routine duties included catching
counterfeiters, busting credit-card thieves and solving computer crimes. This
last category was one of the fastest-growing missions of the service, whose
job wasn't just limited to protecting Presidents, whether sitting, retired or
aspiring.
Win Workman had gone to the Service by way of BATF. The pay was higher, the
duties more interesting. Just as long as he didn't have to guard any
Presidents.
There was little danger of that, he had discovered. Win was too "street" for
the White House detail. The Boston office preferred him to work on undercover
assignments.
So Win Workman worked the street. He liked working the street. The trouble was
every time the President blew into town, they pulled him off the street, made
him shave and put on his best Brooks Brothers gray suit and handed him the
belt radio whose earphone had been custom-fitted from a mold of his left ear
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for a perfect fit.
Usually he had to deal with the "quarterlies"-the local nuts and screwballs
who had come to the service's attention because they had made public threats
against the Chief Executive. They were interviewed every quarter as a matter
of routine precaution and were checked out whenever the President came to
town.
But this time he had to stand post, thanks to a virulent flu that had knocked
out half the Boston office.
Win felt like a tailor's dummy standing post as the Presidential motorcade
rolled like a segmented black dragon through the narrow streets of the city.
All dressed up and hoping for no action. None whatsoever, thank you very
much. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]