Target Lancer (30 page)

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to considering just digging out that nine-millimeter slug from the wooden floor, where it had deposited itself after traveling through the blond assassin’s Ray-Bans and brain, and wiping down the M-1 I’d borrowed to eliminate the other assassin, and fuck it, walk away. Wasn’t like that janitor was liable to provide much of a description of me.

But I was law enforcement today, not the free agent I usually was, and I had a responsibility to Bobby Kennedy and even these great United States. Besides, it was odds on that this would be covered up—that neither the Justice Department nor the Secret Service would want word getting out that two assassins were killed while lying in wait for a Presidential parade. Not good press. Not good press at all.

So what to do?

I called the Cook County sheriff’s office and asked for Dick Cain, knowing he’d be out in the field, maybe Soldier Field, still caught up in this presidential trip that wasn’t happening.

“Patch me through,” I said. “Tell him it’s Nate Heller and that it’s important.”

Getting Cain took five minutes that only felt like five hours. The small solace was that in the meantime nobody came running up the stairs with guns to arrest me or kill me or anything. Two dead, and even the janitor hadn’t noticed, which was no surprise.

“Nate,” Dick said, outdoors apparently, maybe using the radio mike in his car, “what is it?”

I told him what had happened.

“First,” he said, “change your story. What went down with the first sniper, don’t change a thing. That’s heroic stuff, my friend. But the second guy? Best say that you looked through the sniper scope, saw that other sniper aiming back at you, and fired in self-defense.”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding to myself. I probably would have come up with that myself on the walk back to the Federal Building, but I thanked Dick for the advice and pledged I’d take it.

“Second,” he said, “why the hell are you calling me? I’m with the Cook County Sheriff, in case you forgot.”

“I need these shooting scenes secured before I go back and tell Martineau how I saved the President from getting shot on the trip he didn’t take.”

“Oh. See what you mean. You can’t risk either of those bodies being found and this thing spiraling out of control.”

I was nodding again, like the phone had eyes. “This can’t go public till we know what the official story’s going to be. I could go downstairs and find a cop easy enough—that motorcade’s going on without Kennedy, for some reason, which means there’s still crowd control down there. But I’d have to take potluck.”

“And in Commissioner Wilson’s brave new world, when you call a cop, how do you know what you’re getting? I follow you. You want me to send some of my boys over, or reach out to dependable fellas on the PD?”

“I’ll leave that to you, Dick.”

“Consider it done.”

“So then … I can just walk away?”

“Yeah. You go fill Martineau in. He’s probably back by now—he left O’Hare when the call came from D.C., canceling.”

“Is that where you are, O’Hare?”

“Yeah. We still have Senators Dirksen and Douglas taking the motorcade into town, plus Justice Goldberg, Bob Kennedy’s guy Katzenbach, a few other dimly lit luminaries. Nice to know that even if the President can’t make it, the crowds can go wild getting a load of the comptroller of the currency.”

I laughed at that. “Yeah. And what teenage girl doesn’t go to bed dreaming about Everett Dirksen? Listen, Dick, thanks for this. I knew you were the right guy to call.”

So I took the stairs down, did not encounter the janitor on the way out, and headed back for the Federal Building. Sunny but cool, the walk felt good.

When I got to the ninth-floor offices of the Secret Service, the bullpen was about half full, guys pulled back in from duty that no longer mattered. Martineau’s office blinds were down, but he proved to be home.

I stuck my head in. “Marty, got a few minutes?”

He looked none the worse for wear, after this frantic, stressful morning, working at his desk in his suit coat. Those wiggle-worm eyebrows made his frown look unfriendly, but that was more concern than anything.

“Nate, where the hell have you been?”

I shut the door behind me, went over and sat across from him, feeling very much like a juvie reporting to the high-school principal. I kept the report short and factual, except for the self-defense aspect Dick Cain had suggested, and as dry and humorless as if I’d been a Secret Service agent all my career. Easy to play it straight when the cordite is still clinging inside your nostrils.

Throughout, the broad-shouldered chief was rocking gently in his big swivel chair, his hands tented before him. His expression remained blank but for eyes that were moving in thought. When I’d finished my report, I didn’t prompt him for a reaction. He would give it to me in due time.

Finally Martineau leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk and clasping his hands, as if we were about to say grace. I hoped I wasn’t the meal.

“Chief Cain has secured the scene?”

“If not, he soon will have. Either with his own SIU guys or with reliable PD.”

His sigh damn near ruffled papers on his desk. “Nate, you did the right thing. You may have saved the President’s life … yes, I know he canceled, but having two armed, trained assassins floating around out there, with Lancer as their target, would be unacceptable. We might prefer them in custody…”

Interesting choice:
might
prefer to have them in custody.

“… but we certainly like having them out of the game. You did well calling Chief Cain. I didn’t realize you were aware of his special status.”

“What special status is that?”

Martineau shrugged. “I don’t entirely know, I was just told to work with him on this Presidential visit. He apparently is a government asset. I would assume of the Company. Both the Cook County Sheriff’s Department and the Chicago PD have a strong working relationship with the CIA, you know.”

“I
didn’t
know.”

That seemed to faintly amuse him. “In this day and age, Nate? Local police in big cities routinely take specialized counterintelligence training with the spooks. Anyway, Cain will help us make this go away.”

I’d been right. This would be covered up.

Martineau sighed again, not so big this time. “The President has a number of scheduled trips on the docket, and I’ve already spoken to your boss—Robert Kennedy, I mean—and he wants no publicity on this assassination plot.”

That didn’t surprise me.

“What about Vallee?” I asked. “Is he still loose out there?”

Martineau’s head snapped back a little and he grinned. “No, didn’t anyone tell you? He’s in Interview One, right now. Lieutenant Gross and Sergeant Shoppa brought him in about fifteen minutes ago. We haven’t even had time to question him.”

“You mean, he’s not a priority anymore?”

“Not really. Just another crank. We’ve had other fish to fry—actually, we’ve already had an agents’ meeting about the general situation.”

I hadn’t been able to attend, busy managing the scenes of two shootings. Of mine. Still, it must have been a short meeting.

“What did I miss, Marty?”

“Well, you’re aware we’ve been operating on a non-documentary basis—strictly oral reports. On Monday, every agent involved in this investigation of potential motorcade assassins will spend time with Charlotte dictating oral reports.”

Charlotte was the top secretary around here.

“From these typed reports,” he said, “I will write an overview that will remain top secret—with our COS designation—which I will send by special courier to Chief Rowley.”

“COS?”

“Central Office Secret. You can see how this benefits your situation.”

I did. I had just killed two suspects and would not have to answer any detailed questions, no hearings, no shooting board, no nothing.

“And the two Cubans?”

Martineau shrugged. “They’ll be released shortly.”

“What the hell?”

“Nate, we don’t have an iota of evidence on them. Checks we’ve run bring up no outstanding warrants, and only back up their cover story. The sole indication that they’re dangerous comes from the FBI, who don’t want any part of this. What else can we do?”

“I
saw
them with those white pricks!”

“What white pricks?”

He had a point.

“And Vallee?”

“We’ll be turning him over to the Chicago police this afternoon.”

“On what charge?”

“The one Shoppa and Gross hauled him in on—concealed weapons. He was making an illegal left-hand turn; they pulled him over, and saw a hunting knife on the rider’s seat. When his trunk was searched, cartons of ammunition, an M-1 and a .22 revolver were found.”

“Who’s interrogating him?”

“Nobody. What
about,
at this point? We yanked him off the street to keep a lid on him while the President was in town. And the President isn’t coming. Anyway, Vallee’s just another nut. The team of four were the main attraction.”

“Mind if I have a chat with Vallee?”

“Be my guest.”

I got up and was halfway out when Martineau said, “We do appreciate everything you’ve done. That was a dangerous situation this morning, at that printer’s. I think you handled it well.”

“I appreciate that, Marty.”

“I can’t imagine how chilling it must have been, looking through that sniper scope and seeing another rifle aiming back at you.” He seemed to actually shiver. “That you had the presence of mind to just …
take
him out, before he could do the same to you? Well, it’s something not just anybody could do.”

I nodded at him. That wasn’t close to what really happened, but what could I say? On the other hand, the way I really handled it wasn’t something just anybody could do, either.

Shoppa and Gross were standing outside Interview One. The two Pickpocket Detail cops were in street clothes, per good surveillance technique, stocky Shoppa in a who-shot-the-couch blue-and-white-speckled sport coat over a white open-neck shirt, horsey Gross in a baggy brown suit and a yellow shirt with no tie. They looked happy but beat, having logged plenty of hours babysitting Vallee. Shoppa was smoking a cigar, Gross a cigarette.

“So you nailed him on a left-hand turn, huh?” I said with a grin. “Nothing like good, solid police work.”

“Some of the best goddamn arrests,” Shoppa said, mildly defensive, “grow out of traffic violations.”

“How’d it go down, exactly?”

Gross said, “We’d been tailing Vallee since around eight. We figured he was headed in to work, but then he was just, I don’t know, driving. We didn’t know what the hell he was up to. I’ll be seeing the ass end of that piece of shit white Ford in my sleep.”

Shoppa shrugged. “He was turning west onto Wilson from Damen, heading toward the expressway. Figured he was finally going to that printing plant.”

“They were closed today,” I said.

“Yeah,” Shoppa said, and exhaled cheap cigar smoke. “We didn’t hear about that till we hauled his ass in.”

“When was that?”

Shoppa shrugged. “Must’ve been ten after nine.” He looked at his partner. “Nine-fifteen?”

Gross shrugged, nodded. “He didn’t have any firearms on his person, but his trunk was a friggin’ arsenal. Seven hundred fifty rounds for that rifle of his.” He grinned and looked even more like a horse. “Think we’ll get a thank-you note from JFK?”

“Maybe not,” I said.

“Fuck it,” Shoppa said, and blew a smoke ring. “I was a Nixon man anyway.”

I gestured toward the interview room. “Martineau said I could take a crack at him.”

Shoppa farted with his lips. “Move in with him and pick out furniture, for all I care. I don’t wanna waste
my
time with that screwball.”

When I went in, the sight of Vallee gave me a little start—seated military straight on his side of the scarred table, wearing a white T-shirt with a blue and black plaid shirt over it, damn near identical to the ensemble worn by that blond assassin I’d shot right in the Ray-Bans. Identical, too, was the military-style butch haircut, and the hair color and general Nordic cast of the features.

Vallee was smaller than the late blond, whose face had been narrower; but the resemblance did shake me some.

Settling in opposite him, I said, “Good morning, Tommy. Remember me?”

He frowned, and the big blue eyes under the slightly Neanderthal shelf of forehead narrowed but didn’t blink. “We spoke at the Eat Rite. Were you undercover?”

“Guess you could say that. I was checking you out on a tip from a cop who heard you making threatening remarks about the President.”

A tiny sneer on the pinched little mouth accompanied a grunt of a laugh. “I’ve never made a secret of how I feel about Kennedy. We’ll be in serious trouble unless Goldwater is elected, you know. But I never really threatened him.”

“Sure you did.”

“Negative. That was all just figures of speech. Hyper boly.” He meant “hyperbole.”

“Okay.” I had photos of the Cubans and the two white snipers in my inside jacket pocket. I got them out and pushed them across to Vallee. “Know any of these fellas?”

“Negative.”

“Not either
one
of these white fellas? In the service, maybe?”

“No, sir.”

I tapped the photos of Gonzales and Rodriguez. “These other two are Cuban. And you trained Cuban exiles near Levittown, right? Maybe you met them there. Look again. Maybe you met just one of ’em.”

He looked. He did look. Shook his head. “Negative.”

“Where was it you served in Korea, Tom?”

“Mostly I was stationed in Japan.”

“Whereabouts in Japan?”

“Camp Otsu.”

That meant nothing to me.

I asked, “What did you do there?”

“That’s classified, sir.”

“Weren’t you just a private? With no special skills? Why would what you did in Japan be classified?”

“Well … Camp Otsu was a U-2 base, sir. Back in those days, that was top secret stuff.”

Goose bumps danced on my neck. Ruby’s friend Lee had bragged to me about service at a U-2 base in Japan.

I said, “U-2—wasn’t that program the CIA’s baby?”