President's assassin

CHAPTER EIGHT

Straight ahead and through the helicopter's windshield, we observed three or four columns of dark smoke curdling up from 495, Washington's notorious beltway and below, a long and frustrated parking lot that snaked its way back to northern Virginia.

The pilot twisted around in his chair and yelled back to us, "No place to land. When I get low, jump out. Watch the skids."

He tugged back on his throttle and the machine swooped down about five feet off the ground and loitered. I leaped first and landed on a small patch of grass, turned, and saw Jennie hurtling into me. I had just enough time to get my hands out, and she landed in my arms. A nearby cop was staring. I asked, "What happened here?"

He replied, "Man, you won't believe this. Some asshole fired at a car." He pointed a finger at a mangled wreck leaking black smoke near the front of the tangled pack. "There-that thing… Used to be a BMW 745i, if you can believe it. Just started crashing into other cars. Everyone was doing about sixty-five… and you got this."

I saw that in addition to the wrecked BMW, "this" included some fifteen cars ranging from dimpled to mangled, a collage of shattered safety glass, torn steel, and ripped and dented people. Looking badly shaken, the cop remarked, "Probably just road rage… but holy shit."

Three county fire trucks, ten ambulances, and a fleet of marked and unmarked police cars were squeezed onto the outer median, lights flashing, radios squawking, the whole nine yards. To my right rested a crunched-up blue Ford Escort, where an emergency crew manhandled a Jaws of Life apparatus. An old woman howled in agony, and two emergency aid workers leaned through the car window and fought to plug an IV into her arm. To my left were several dazed people seated on the backs of ambulances, their shirts and dresses stained with blood. Above circled three news helicopters, broadcasting this corpus of destruction and misery.

Twenty yards from the BMW; I noted a clump of cops, in the midst of which stood a man looking singularly self-important, cell phone in one hand, the other waving around, directing an invisible symphony or something. It was George Meany, and understandably, he was not displaying the gestures or body language of a happy man. I asked Jennie, "Why are we here?"

"What?" She appeared distracted.

"How do we know this was caused by our friends?"

"I… what?" She was peering in the direction of the old lady who'd been fighting the emergency aid people. I followed her eyes and saw that the woman was now slumped forward, quiet and still, the fight gone out of her. The rescue team was catching its breath and the medical techs were repacking their kits. Jennie took a step in the direction of the car, and I took her arm. "Don't. She's beyond help."

"But-"

"I know." I squeezed her arm. "Focus on finding her killers. Now, why are we here?"

Jennie took a long swallow and said quietly, "Let's go ask."

We joined Meany, who ignored us and continued to chat on the phone. Above the cacophony I caught snatches of George's conversation, and clearly the tone was neither cordial nor pleasant. Actually, George looked a little panicky, like a guy being told it was his ass on the line. For a brief instant I almost felt guilty about disliking him. He said, "That's right, sir." He wiped some perspiration from his upper lip. "No, uh… yes sir… of course, sir." He hung up and announced, "What a fuckin' nightmare."

Jennie asked him, "How do we know it was them?"

Meany licked his lips, pointed, and said, "That black BMW over there… the plate check says it belongs to Merrill Benedict."

Nobody said anything. Nobody needed to say anything. Merrill Benedict was the White House spokesperson, the poor soul thrown into the daily mosh pit called the White House press corps to look and sound like he was answering questions he wasn't answering. About forty, slight of build, sandy-haired, a bit of a dandy, but nice-looking, and boy, was the guy a gold-star bull-shitter. I asked George, "Dead?"

"That's what being torn in half will do to you, Drummond."

Jennie said, "So he was the target. And all the rest of these poor people were… were…"

I looked at her. Her face was drained of color and her eyes looked cloudy and unfocused. All this misery and chaos was getting to her, was in fact affecting us all. But you have to swallow your feelings and put on a game face, or you scare the shit out of the public. I said, "The clinical expression is 'collateral damage.' " I added, "But I don't think that fits this."

"No?" asked Meany, looking at me a little incredulously. "Well.. what does it fit, Drummond?"

"I don't think this was random carnage. I think the killers intended something spectacular."

George shook his head derisively. "Just what I need. A half-baked theory from a half-assed lawyer." He smiled-or more accurately, sneered-at me and added, "If you don't mind, Drummond, I'll make up my own mind after I hear from the professionals." Now I remembered why I disliked this guy.

Jennie, however, had heard what I said and asked, "Why? Why would they… I just don't… I mean, I don't see…"

There was no answer, yet. I replied, "We should think about that."

And for a brief moment we did think about it. Clearly there were a thousand easier and less conspicuous ways to murder Merrill Benedict-an ambush in his driveway, poison in his toothpaste-any and all of which could've been accomplished without witnesses, without complications, and without this indiscriminate brutality. But I was sure that was exactly the point-the decision to murder Merrill Benedict in plain daylight, in the densest traffic, at the worst possible hour was meant to ignite an atrocity, to provoke awe and revulsion. Throw a stone into water, and you know you'll get ripples. Unbelievable.

"Seven dead, so far," Meany muttered, a bit stunned. "Twenty-two more injured, several critically."

Actually, eight dead and twenty-one wounded as of a moment ago, but the devil's not in the details in a nightmare like this. Meany commented, "Thank God it was rush hour. No children."

"Think parents," I replied. No need to spell out that there were a lot of kids waiting for Mom or Pop to come swinging through the door, who were instead about to find a glum-faced D.C. detective bearing bad tidings on their stoop. I caught Jennie's eye, and she turned away.

I looked at George and asked, "Witnesses?"

"What?"

"Witnesses, George?"

"Oh… well, the police are collecting statements."He said to Jennie, "That lady over by that ambulance… the blue skirt, over there?" He pointed and we saw her. "She thinks she saw something. Make yourself useful and see what the cops are getting out of her."

The lady in question was already being interrogated by a pair of detectives. Jennie flashed her fed creds and asked the duo to take a powder. Actually, I was a little surprised when the detectives put up no fight and complied. Then again, the conditions on this highway weren't normal-not with this level of carnage, not with a federal notice to report all serious incidents immediately, and certainly not with feds falling out of helicopters. It was beginning to dawn on the locals that what happened here was something much worse than a simple case of road rage gone berserk.

Jennie asked the lady's name, Carol Blandon; her age, sixty-one; her address, Montgomery, Maryland; and so forth. We didn't care about her personal info, but it's important to assess a witness before you get into it. With a shaky hand, Mrs. Blandon held a bloody bandage over her left eye, and clearly she was distressed and a little out of focus. But she appeared lucid enough, and she sounded reliable, albeit a bit crabby, which, given the circumstances, was understandable. In a soothing and respectful tone Jennie finally asked what happened.

"Oh, I… well, I was in the third lane… you know, of the four lanes. I was… I think I was… maybe, three cars behind that black car over there." She stared for a moment at the wreck that was once poor Merrill Benedict's BMW "I was listening to the radio… I don't remember what, and… and, I… well, I saw this man stand up in his car and stick his upper body out of the moonroof."

This was a very significant point. I asked, "You saw him stand up?"

"I suppose he might already have been standing when I looked. What's the difference?"

"You're right. No difference "Actually, the difference was that Mrs. Blandon just went from being a key witness to a contextual witness in court, assuming we got to that point.

Jennie asked her, "Do you recall what he looked like?"

"No. It all happened very fast."

Jennie then asked Mrs. Blandon, "Do you recall the make of car?"

"I… I don't know."

"Color, number of doors, SUV? sedan… anything? It would be helpful."

"It was on the inside lane and the cars in between obscured my view. I couldn't tell you anyway… I'm not good about that."

Jennie and I exchanged glances. I said, "Well, just tell us what happened."

"All right, this young man was sticking out the top of the car. It was an odd sight. I remember thinking it was some high school kid.. " She shook her head. "Then he had something on his shoulder… not big… a tube of some sort and it belched fire."

I said, "Not a gun… a tube?"

She stared at me a moment. "Yes. A tube. And then… then, oh my… well, then everything turned crazy, and I had to stop looking. Cars were banging into each other… I hit the brakes, and I got slammed from behind… and… and… oh, sweet Lord, it was awful."

I drew Jennie off to the side, out of Mrs. Blandon's earshot. I informed her, "She's describing a shoulder-fired antitank weapon. The guy fired out the sunroof because the backblast needs to escape or you get fried."

Jennie nodded and pointed at an exit ramp about a hundred yards from where we stood. She said, "That's probably where they escaped. They fired, exited, and drove off like nothing happened."

"Right. Maybe somebody who drove on, or somebody already in the hospital, got a better look at that car. We should find out."

She put her hand on my arm and said, "I'll ask George to tell the cops to ask around. We'll also ask the local TV and radio stations to request public assistance."

Jennie's cell phone rang and she backed off and answered it, leaving me to thank Mrs. Blandon for her assistance. I overheard Jennie say, "Yeah… uh-huh. What?… oh, shit… you're kidding."

She rolled her eyes at me and said into the phone, "No… I don't mean, literally, you're kidding." She paused. "All right, just tell me everything you know… Okay, fine-everything you think you know."

She listened for another two minutes, intermittently prodding the agent on the other end, then said, "I see." After another moment she said, "At least an hour. Our helicopter's gone. No. I can't… Well, just call Mark Butterman. See if he can get over there. I want that place swept clean."

She hung up, drew a few breaths, and then informed me, "You won't believe this."

Surveying the surrounding carnage, I replied, "Try me."

"Justice Fineberg walked up to the front door of his large and lovely Bethesda home at 7:00 p.m. and it exploded."

"Phillip Fineberg?"

"Yeah. Know anything about him?"

"A bit. But how… I mean, doesn't a Supreme Court justice have a security detail?"

"The Supremes have their own security people, a mix of retired cops… some retired Bureau types… double-dippers. My office handles their clearances, reviews their procedures, and coordinates joint matters." After a pause, she added, "They're a good outfit. But they're not bodyguards. They just weren't expecting…"

"What?"

"The on-scene investigator's not sure." She added, somewhat annoyed, "I'm so tired of dealing with agents with law degrees. Ask a simple question and you get ten conditionals. You know what I mean?"

Right. "Well, what did he tell you?"

"The security agent who drove the justice home said the explosion happened at the front entrance. Little damage to the home. Even the doorway's intact. Fineberg was the only casualty."

"Shrapnel marks?"

"Yeah… like that. Some sort of fragmentary device, he thinks. The device nearly blew Fineberg in half"

I considered that a moment. "The explosive device was placed outside the door."

"In fact, it was" She looked at me and said, "You're on a roll.. Want to take a stab at the rest of it?"

"Sure" I asked, "Was there a security system at the house?"

"An electronic system/Sensors inside, cameras outside-all very sophisticated… supposedly tamperproof. Since 9/11, all the Supremes have them."

"Do the cameras record or just view?"

"Record. Tapes are kept for twenty-four hours, then taped over."

"Surely the killers reconnoitered in advance."

"That would make sense." She thought about that and came to the appropriate conclusion. "We'll review the tapes and see if we can pick them out."

"After what we saw this morning, we should consider the possibility that they knew the security routine… possibly even the security setup in advance."

"Bad assumption," Jennie replied. "The Secret Service and the Supremes' security detail are different organizations."

"With a hundred million dollars, think about what you can buy. Or who."

"All right… I won't rule it out as a possibility."

I tried to re-create how it might have happened, thinking about how I would do it. "When you review the tapes, you might see a delivery drop earlier in the day. FedEx, UPS-something."

She shook her head. "Not possible."

"Of course it's possible."

"All mail and packages are collected and screened for explosives and poisons. Even the stuff delivered to their homes. Standard precaution since the anthrax and ricin attacks."

"Did I say the bomb was in the parcel?"

"Oh… you mean-"

"Yeah. As the delivery person dropped off the package, he-possibly she-planted the explosive device somewhere near the front door."

"How?"

"Like, they bent over, one hand placed the package by the door, and the other inconspicuously put the bomb in place."

She considered that and then said, "That could work, couldn't it?"

I nodded. "It's an ideal ambush site. Fineberg had to be stationary at least a few seconds to unlock the door."

"I… I hadn't thought of that."

"If there are bushes by the door, maybe the explosive device was hidden there. But you said it nearly blew him in half."

"The agent reported the explosion went off around waist level."

"That doesn't make sense. A normal explosive device or mine would blow off his feet, possibly his legs." I considered this for a moment, then I thought about the antitank weapon used here, and a really weird thought popped into my mind. "Unless it was a Bouncing Betty."

"A Bouncing Betty?"

"A type of military mine."

"Tell me about that."

"They're fairly common… small… hard to detect with the naked eye, especially when camouflaged. You stuff it into the ground and it sticks up about two inches. When it's triggered, a small explosive goes off, the detonating device pops about three feet into the air, and then goes off."

"Wouldn't Fineberg have to step on the mine?"

"They come out of the factory pressure detonated. But they can be modified into tripwire- or even command-detonated devices."

"So it. would-"

"Yes-it would. A guy's up the street watching. The second Fineberg's hand touches the knob, up pops Mr. Nasty."

"Jesus-how do you protect against something like that?"

"I think that's exactly the point."

"What am I missing here?"

"Their note-we can't."

She nodded. Then she suggested, "But there's something important-something we're overlooking. I'm not thinking…" She glanced in the direction of the ruined BMW, then said, "Antitank weapons… Bouncing Bettys… this is military hardware we're talking about."

"And…?"

"And where did these people get their hands on these things? Right?"

Right.

Jennie then rushed off to inform Meany of the newest disaster, our guesses about the weapons used, and what this might mean in terms of fresh leads and whatever.

Left with nothing better to do, I withdrew my cell phone from a pocket and turned it on for the first time that day. The little window informed me that somebody in the 703 area code had called about ten times. Incidentally, the CIA, like the Army, is big on reporting chains and timely communications. Of course, as a lawyer, I'm accustomed to working and operating alone, making my own decisions, accountable to nobody but my clients and the court docket. I was having a little trouble getting back into this chain of command thing.

I decided to get this over with and called Phyllis. On an open airwave, I was no doubt engaging in an egregious heresy of some sort. But with three helicopters broadcasting overhead, and a Supreme Court justice splattered across the front of his house, confidentiality was the least of our worries, in my view.

Phyllis sounded a lot annoyed and wasted a few comments reminding me I wasn't the only one working this case, and so on. Then she listened patiently as I unloaded the latest. She asked a few questions, some of which I could answer, and some of which I couldn't. Finally she commented, "Well, I can't recall a worse evening."

I nearly replied, "How about 9/11?" The CIA hadn't exactly ended that day parading down Constitution Avenue draped in victory laurels, as I recalled. But maybe she had a point. By the evening of 9/11 the worst was over, except for the shock, funerals, cleanup, and revenge. These guys weren't through. In fact, the worst could be yet to come. I commented, "Well, the morning wasn't so hot either."

"The morning was just the entree."

"Right." I suggested, "We should probably anticipate another hit to start off our day tomorrow."

"It would be a mistake to expect these people to be predictable. They haven't been yet."

"Would you care to wager?"

"No, I would not." She changed the subject and noted, "This is all very mystifying. It's obvious why they assassinated Merrill Benedict, don't you think?"

"I think it looks obvious. Like Belknap, he's a confidant of the President, and given his job… Well, there's going to be a big hole at the White House morning press briefing tomorrow."

"Indeed. Now, what about Fineberg?"

Good question. Connections are important in any criminal case; they're irreplaceable when they're all you have. So I considered her question and it was a bit tricky.

Justice Phillip Fineberg wasn't close to anybody I knew of. And though it pains me to speak ill of the dead, here goes; the man was a prick. He was about seventy, a legal egghead plucked two Presidents back from the faculty of Yale Law, and every President since has cursed the choice. The press generally characterized him, somewhat delicately, as cantankerous and iconoclastic, journalistic code words for a robed asshole. He browbeat and terrified every lawyer unfortunate enough to appear at the highest court, even those arguing a case he favored.

The American Bar Association could raffle tickets to pee on his gravestone. Also his legal opinions were irrational, and he was famous-or infamous-for writing contrarian dissents insulting to both the minority and majority opinions. His eight brethren would dearly love to get this lug in a back alley and lump him up good. Except somebody beat them to the punch.

In truth, Fineberg's murder would be a source of quiet jubilation in many quarters, and made no sense I could see.

Phyllis repeated, "Well? Is there a connection? Or was he just a target of convenience?"

"I don't think there's a specific connection."

Apparently I was being tested, because she snapped, "Think harder, Drummond. This city is filled with targets. There has to be a reason they chose him. Right?"

"Right."

"I didn't give you this assignment to speculate. These killers aren't stupid. You can't afford to be."

So I thought harder. I suggested, "Maybe Fineberg was a decoy."

"For what?"

"To sow doubt and confusion. To mislead us and force us to waste time and precious resources chasing down an empty path. You know-"

"Yes… possibly." After a pause she observed, "Also, there are many prominent people in Washington, our ability to protect them is limited, and by forcing us to spread out, it gets easier for them."

"Right." The lady was on, and I went into the listening mode.

She added, "They're forcing our hand. This makes three important officials in one day We can't very well dissemble any longer, can we? We're going to have to disclose what's happening to the public."

"Maybe we should have done that earlier."

"Don't be naive. There was a very good reason we chose to handle things this way."

"To avoid embarrassment?" I offered.

"Oh please. What nobody could in good taste confess this morning. What we all wanted to avoid-hysteria. Every person in this town with a hint of an impressive title is going to beg for protection. Somebody has to perform the triage."

"Goon."

"A lot of feelings are going to get hurt, and a lot of enemies made. Understand-with an election, the President wanted desperately to avoid that."

Made sense, I guess. I was reminded of the cold war days, when a select handful of people in the Pentagon were issued special passes to be flown out of the city on the first whiff of an incoming nuclear attack. They would ride out the great cataclysm inside a hollowed-out mountain somewhere not even God knew about, to emerge, I guess, after the Geiger counters stopped having heart attacks. It was the ultimate get-out-of-jail card, the modern equivalent of a ticket to Noah's Ark. For the rest of us, it was an official stamp of expendability. Fortunately, the big one never came, so there were no hard feelings-as if anybody would've been left to feel bad anyway

Not so this time. The President was involved in a touch-and-go election campaign, plenty of people would remember, and he. already had enemies by the bushel. I said, "Got it."

"I shouldn't have to explain these things to you."

Right.

It's never pleasant getting your butt chewed by the boss. But I didn't really want to get into it with this lady who might lace cyanide into my cigars or something. And for the record, if you'll pardon the pun, the lady was dead-on. Bodies were piling up, and Sean Drummond's singular contribution was to explain how. What mattered was why, and from there you might get to who.

I asked her for an update on the bounty, and she informed me that no progress had been made, though reports were still filtering in from around the world, and she would let me know. In other words, piss off.

She closed by informing me that Jennie, Meany, and I needed to be back at the Incident Command Center in time for a nine o'clock session of the oversight cell.

I began to wonder if this day was going to end.