Parallax View (28 page)

The officer lifted
one arm to block their passage. “Where do you think you’re going?” he said, his
natural cop suspicion evident in his voice.

Tracie took a look
at the blood and said to Shane, “Oh, honey, you must have been cut by flying
glass.” She drew a tissue out of her pocket and wiped the blood off his face.

She pointed to the
accident scene and added excitedly, “We were walking along the sidewalk when
those two cars collided almost right next to us. Someone’s trapped inside that Ford.
I think they need help!” The kid who had been driving the pickup truck was
still standing next to the vehicles, watching curiously.

The cop took two
quick steps in the direction of the wreck and then turned back to them. He
pointed a finger and said, “You’re not going anywhere. If you witnessed this
accident, we’re going to need a statement from you.”

“Of course,”
Tracie answered, and the cop hurried off toward the vehicles.

The moment he
turned, Tracie pulled Shane in the opposite direction. “Come on,” she said.
“We’ve got about ten seconds of confusion before that cop realizes we’re full
of shit. This is our last chance. Let’s make the most of it.”

They melted into
the crowd, trying to disappear behind the growing throng of onlookers. A few
seconds later, she could hear raised voices and hoped none of the pedestrians
had been alert enough to track their movement and point them out to the
officer. Seconds passed and Tracie risked a look back and saw no one who seemed
to be paying any attention to them.

“Are you all
right?” she asked Shane.

He shrugged. “I
didn’t even realize I had been cut. Smashing my head against the window in the
accident didn’t do much for my headache, but the cut itself is no big deal. The
more important question is what the hell are we going to do now?”

Tracie checked her
watch and shook her head, frustrated. “I wish I knew,” she said. “We’ll never
be able to get there in time on foot.” She looked up and down the street. “And
there’s not a cab or a bus stop in sight. Goddammit.” Then she slowed her pace
and watched the scene unfolding in front of them, unable to believe their good
fortune.

Less than thirty
feet ahead, a dirty green Chevrolet station wagon pulled to the edge of the
street, almost close enough to another parked car to scrape paint. The driver
leapt out of the Ford and trotted into a neighborhood convenience store,
leaving his car double-parked and idling in the D.C. sunshine while purchasing
his newspaper or coffee or whatever.

Tracie flashed a
smile at Shane. “We’re back in business,” she said.

45

June 2, 1987

9:35 a.m.

Columbia Road, Washington, D.C.

The Minuteman Mutual Insurance
Building was old. It had clearly been constructed over a century ago and was a
throwback to a more elegant time, with ornate granite columns soaring over the
Columbia Road sidewalk, an architectural dinosaur somehow managing to avoid
extinction into the late 1900s. It looked slightly out of place next to its
more modern neighbors, like a dowdy grandmother dressed in decades-old finery
at the family reunion. At just seven stories high, the building was stubby by
today’s standards.

They had driven a
couple of blocks west of the Minuteman Building in an attempt to avoid the
worst of the traffic that inevitably accompanied a presidential appearance. The
trip from the accident scene to the Minuteman Building’s Columbia Road address
had taken much longer than Tracie anticipated thanks to that congestion, and
she drove the stolen station wagon as fast as she dared.

She circled building
serving as the KGB assassin’s perch and pulled the car to a stop at a curbside
spot a block and a half away from the wooden platform that had been erected for
Reagan’s speech. The president was to dedicate a brand-new, twenty-story office
building in celebration of the renewal of the American entrepreneurial spirit.

The crowd seemed
to be thickening as Tracie parked the car and she said, “I’ve really got to
hustle. We lost too much damned time with that car accident. When I get out,
you slide over and take the wheel. Wait for me, but be ready to take off at a
moment’s notice. You’ll know if I’ve failed because all hell is going to break
loose if I’m too late. People will be running everywhere, sirens will be
blaring, and you’re going to see cops and plain-clothes agents come out of the
woodwork.”

“You’re not going
to fail,” he said.

She turned and
fixed him with a hard look. “If that happens, wait five minutes. If I’m not
back in five minutes, I won’t be coming back. Find your way to a police station
and tell the cops everything.”

Shane returned her
stare. His face was pale, with dark puffy circles under his eyes. He looked
like hell and Tracie knew he must be suffering, but he didn’t show it. He
nodded once. “Got it,” he said unconvincingly “But what are you going to do
about the letter?”

Tracie hesitated.
She had been giving the issue some thought herself. “I’m keeping it with me,”
she said. “It’s my responsibility to deliver this thing to the president, and
by God, that’s what I’m going to do. If things go south and I get killed, I
doubt the sniper will have the time or the presence of mind to search my body
before escaping, so the authorities will eventually find it, anyway.”

Shane said
nothing, holding her in his steady gaze until she began to feel self-conscious.
“What?” she finally said.

“Nothing.” He
swiveled his head and looked out the passenger-side window, then raised his
hand and held it to his forehead for just a moment.

“Listen,” she said
hesitantly. “I need to know you’re going to be here when this is all over.” Her
stomach felt queasy from the familiar adrenaline effect she always experienced
just before going operational. She suspected the mission wasn’t the only thing
causing those butterflies. She felt exactly as she had as a teenage girl before
her first date. The feeling was wonderful and horrible at the same time.

“I’m not going
anywhere,” he answered. “This car will be right in this spot when you get back.
You don’t have to worry about that.” She reached for his hand and he picked it
up and squeezed it.

She squeezed back,
hard. “I…I’ve never said this before, not to anyone other than my mom and dad,”
she said. “I’m not sure I even know how to do it. Um, I think, I uh…”

“I know,” he said.
“I love you, too. I have from the minute you introduced yourself by sticking a
gun in my face.”

She hugged him
fiercely, then stepped out of the car and began walking briskly toward the
Minuteman Insurance building.

***

June 2, 1987

9:45 a.m.

Columbia Road, Washington, D.C.

Shane squinted and watched her go.
The sun streaming through the dirty passenger-side window ratcheted up the pain
in his already pounding head, but it was worth it. Tracie looked fantastic in
her new suit, and he tracked her with his eyes until she disappeared in the
crowd.

He waited thirty
seconds, then shut down the car and placed the key on the driver’s side floor.
It would be out of sight to anyone passing by unless they stopped at the window
and examined the interior. He stepped out of the car and closed the door,
leaving the vehicle unlocked. He couldn’t take the chance of her returning,
needing to access the car and finding it locked, especially since he was
supposed to be sitting here, ready to leave. Hopefully any potential car
thieves would be reluctant to ply their trade, given the police and Secret
Service presence in the area.

Shane stepped onto
the sidewalk and followed in Tracie’s footsteps. He had no real strategy in
mind other than to trail behind and try to help her if he could. He knew he was
being foolish, knew his presence on the scene would likely cause more problems
for her than it would solve, but the thought of the beautiful young woman he
had pulled from the burning wreckage of a plane just a couple of nights ago—the
woman he had fallen deeply, hopelessly in love with—taking on a professional
KGB assassin with no backup and only the vaguest sense of a plan herself was unthinkable.

Who was to say
there was only one man perched up on that roof waiting to put a bullet through
Ronald Reagan’s heart? Shane was no expert on covert operations, but he had
read enough spy novels to know that military sniper units often consisted of
two men—one to pull the trigger, and one to calculate wind direction, velocity,
and distances, and to act as a spotter. Maybe that wasn’t how the Russians were
going to do it, but if it was, Shane doubted Tracie would ever get close enough
to the shooter to take him down.

So he followed,
struggling to keep up.

He was far enough
behind Tracie that she wouldn’t see him unless she backtracked or stopped and
turned around for some reason. Neither action seemed likely because they were
almost out of time. The President’s appearance was scheduled for ten o’clock
and it was now after nine forty-five.

Shane picked up
his pace. He felt light-headed and shaky, his headache blasting like a jackhammer
inside his head. The Minuteman Insurance building was still a little more than
halfway down the block. He wanted to break into a run but didn’t dare. If the
cops saw a young man sprinting toward the location where the president would be
speaking in just a few minutes, he would likely be rewarded with a bullet in
the back.

The ironic thing
was that Shane didn’t even care that much about getting shot, but he wouldn’t
be any help to Tracie lying dead on the sidewalk, although the thought ran
through his mind that if that scenario were to take place, the president’s
appearance would certainly be cancelled and at least the leader of the free
world would still be alive. He had to trust Tracie, though. She was a pro and
she knew what she was doing. He chanted it as a mantra as he went.

He hustled along Columbia
Road, moving as fast as he dared, feeling time slipping away. Finally he
reached the wide marble steps leading to the Minuteman Building’s front
entrance and hustled up them two at a time. He looked for Tracie but she was
nowhere to be seen. He dodged a cluster of men in suits and overcoats moving in
the other direction, pushed open the door and stepped into the building.

46

June 2, 1987

9:50 a.m.

Minuteman Insurance Building

There was no time to waste. Tracie
marched quickly across the lobby—an authoritative woman walking with a
purpose—and stopped at a small reception area two-thirds of the way across the
floor. A young woman was in the middle of a conversation with the receptionist,
a hefty older lady with silver-blue hair wearing an old but clean business
suit.

Tracie stepped
directly in front of the desk, cutting in front of the customer. The young
woman sputtered, beginning to complain, and Tracie turned and flashed her FBI
ID, first at the customer and then at the receptionist. “I’m FBI Special Agent
James,” she said. “Please excuse the interruption, but I’m here on critical,
time-sensitive government business.” The woman took a quick look at the card
and backed off a step. She raised her hands and turned away.

“How may I help
you?” the receptionist asked.

“I need to speak
with your supervisor,” Tracie said.

“That would be Mr.
Foley, but he is in a meeting and currently unavailable. Did you have an
appointment?”

“No appointment,”
Tracie said, “but it’s critical I speak to him now. Get him.”

“I’m sorry, but—”

“Pull him out of
his meeting and get him out here now. It’s the last time I’m going to ask.”

“Or what?”

“Or I go get him
myself. This is literally a matter of life and death.” Of course, it was a
bluff. Tracie didn’t have a clue where to begin looking for the receptionist’s
supervisor, but time was short and getting shorter, and she was desperate to
light a fire under this bureaucratic battle axe.

It worked. The
receptionist took one last frosty look at Tracie’s ID, now back in her breast
pocket with the photo facing outward, and then punched a button on her
telephone with a look on her face that suggested she would rather be eating
bugs. She spoke quietly into the handset for a few seconds, listened, said
something else, her face wrinkled in distaste, and then hung up.

“Mr. Foley is on
his way,” she said, refusing to look at Tracie.

“Thank you for all
your help,” she replied sweetly, doing her best to look earnest and sound sincere.
“Thank you, also,” she said to the customer she had interrupted, this time
hoping she actually
did
seem earnest and sincere.

She turned on her
heel and moved to the center of the lobby, conscious of the seconds ticking
away. Moments later, a middle-aged man with perfectly coiffed silver hair and
an air of authority stepped out of an elevator and walked hurriedly toward the
receptionist’s desk, glancing around the lobby as he did so. Halfway to the
desk he spotted Tracie and turned toward her like a guided missile. The man had
impatience written all over his face—
that makes two of us,
Tracie
thought—and was dressed in a suit that Tracie guessed cost more than her
monthly salary.

As he approached,
Tracie flashed her FBI ID and the man waved it away, fluttering his fingers as
if shooing away a pesky mosquito. “FBI Special Agent Madison James,” she said,
doing her best to sound clipped and officious, guessing that tone would appeal
to a man who struck her as the very definition of the word “officious.”

“Doug Foley,” he answered,
taking her hand reluctantly, giving it one moist pump and then dropping it as
if perhaps he feared he might catch something contagious. “Would you mind
telling me why I had to interrupt my weekly meeting with the claims department?
We’re very busy here and I don’t have time to hold the FBI’s hand.”