Just in front of the tower stood the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. It, too, provided a clear line of sight to the podium, though I suspected that access to its copper roof would be far more difficult to obtain. To the right of the post office tower, another tower provided line of sight.
On the opposite side, the rooftop of the Department of Health and Human Services looked especially promising, as did the windows and rooftops of dozens of other local buildings. The Smithsonian Castle alone provided no less than a half dozen prominent pinnacles. I began to appreciate just how difficult a job the Secret Service had. Doubtless, every one of these buildings had to be secured, and with only thirteen hundred in their uniformed division, manning every possible location would be near impossible.
Grant was right. We could get around the patrols. Especially from the distance we were considering.
“Most of their men will be close,” he muttered to me, his arms folded as he surveyed the Mall. “They’ll string out agents around the dignitaries, especially the Presidential party, keeping an eye on the crowd. Spotters will be eyeballing the Mall and the streets, looking for anyone with small arms.”
“Large cal from a mile away?” Martin agreed, shaking his head. “You just can’t prepare for that.”
“See anything you like?” Grant said.
I pointed out the tower to the right of the Old Post Office. “What’s that?”
He consulted his map. “Pennsylvania North. Looks like it’s less than a mile away. Just offices and such. Access won’t be easy.” He stuffed the map back in his pocket. “But it might work as a fall back.”
“Closer to the action instead of further away,” said Martin. “I like it.”
“What about Health and Human Services?” suggested Jerry.
“Government buildings are a bad idea,” said Grant. “No access without special clearance. Security tends to be tighter than private firms. Besides, it’s too close.”
“You know, any one of those buildings on the far side of the Mall might work,” I said.
Grant swore. “That’s Arlington. Across the river. That’s all three, four miles away.”
“So?”
“So you can’t hit your target from that far out. Longest confirmed shot in history with the .50 cal is one and a half miles.”
“Canadians,” said Martin. “Gotta love ‘em.”
“Besides,” Grant continued. “At that range, even armor-piercing rounds ain’t gonna penetrate these shields.”
“All right,” I conceded. “Just saying they got line of sight. That’s all.”
“Three miles,” he snorted.
“Don’t want to attract attention, boys,” Martin growled. “Let’s go.”
Together, we hustled down the Capitol steps and back to the car. Grant drove us to a local McDonalds, where we grabbed lunch and took a table. I noticed he’d brought a shoulder bag with him from the back of the truck. As we sat down to eat, he opened the back and set its contents on the table.
“Christmas time,” he said. “Go ahead and unwrap your presents.”
In front of us lay four cell phones with Blue Tooth earpieces. Each was marked with a number one through four. Jerry picked his up and stuck it in his ear. “Feels weird,” he said.
“They do,” Grant agreed. “Now, let me explain the rules. Each phone is preprogrammed. You say one of our names, it dials automatically and connects. Do not use these phones for anything else. Do not use them until the day of operation. Keep all chatter down to a minimum during the operation. Don’t handle them unless you’re wearing gloves. Once the op concludes, I advise you to wipe them down, destroy the SIM card, and dispose of the phone. Preferably by shattering it. Good drop from a decent height ought to do the trick.”
Jerry held up his, “I ain’t wearing gloves.”
“Yeah, and you just got your fingerprints all over it.” He sighed. “You might want to wipe them off before you use it next time.”
“But I ain’t got any gloves.”
“Daddy already bought the gloves, Cherry. Flesh-colored latex, too, so your hands won’t stand out.”
Jerry shook his head. “I’m allergic to latex.”
Martin choked on his drink, laughing. I thumped his back for him.
“Hell’s bells, what is it with you?”
“What? It ain’t my fault!”
Grant looked to Martin for sympathy, but found none. “We’ll find you some leather ones, okay?”
“Maybe you could knit him some mittens,” I said.
“—It’s not my fault. I just can’t wear latex.”
“I ain’t knitting mittens for Jerry. Look, just put the phones away, and try to keep your paws off them for a few days.”
“Ah Lord,” said Martin, gazing out the window. “Good thing we found this out now.”
“You got any other surprises there, Jerry?”
He shrugged. “No. Just latex, you know?”
“Thousand ways to screw up an op, and we’re bound to run into each and every one of them before we get there,” Martin observed. “Guess that’s a good thing, huh?” He picked up his drink again.
“Question,” I said. They looked at me. “Why are you so focused on not getting caught?”
“What do you mean why?” said Martin.
“Nathan Hale. This is a suicide mission, right? So why all the worries about fingerprints?”
Martin shook his head and sucked his straw, turning back to the window.
Grant said, “Listen, just ‘cause death is inevitable don’t mean you go looking for it.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?”
“Hardly,” said Martin, still looking out the window.
“We aren’t asking them to come after us,” said Grant. “We know that they will, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna give them my frickin’ address. Let alone my fingerprints. All right?”
I shrugged.
“Let’s get back to the room. You start work in three hours. Everyone go over your aliases, and let’s just see if we can’t get through these last couple days unscathed, ‘kay?”
Thirty-Five
We took a rest at the hotel room for a few hours, then grabbed our new ID’s and headed out the door. Grant dropped Martin and Jerry off at the Newseum entrance, and drove us to the Old Post Office. We parked several blocks away and walked up the steps to the historical site, passing by a cheery statue of Ben Franklin, greeting us with a wave of his bronze hand.
The Old Post Office rose before us: a gray, Romanesque cathedral, with tall arches between rounded stairwells resembling battlements, and windows like arrow loops in a medieval castle. High above the angular peaks of the building’s two wings, the clock tower stared down at us from arched windows, capped by a squat spire.
Grant took me in through the front entrance, flashing his badge to the security guards and greeting them like old friends.
“Hey Joan, Bill,” he said.
“Otis! Welcome back, man,” exclaimed Bill. He was a heavier set man with carefully trimmed tufts of hair surrounding an otherwise bald head and a face like a bulldog. He escorted us through the metal detectors and brought us around to the desk.
“How’s your grandma doing?” he said to Grant.
Grant grinned sheepishly. I raised my eyebrows as he poured on the charm. “Better. Thanks for your prayers.”
“Was it bad?” Joan rose from behind the security desk and held onto a clipboard, looking into Grant’s eyes with genuine concern. She was a broad-shouldered, heavy-chested black woman who looked like she could’ve been a linebacker, had she desired, but she had a pleasant smile and an easy going, almost matriarchal demeanor. I wondered what lie Grant had told them to earn their faith and respect. I didn’t wonder long.
“I dunno,” Grant said. “When we first went into see her, she didn’t know us. Took her a few minutes, y’know? Doc says she might walk again, but it’s touch and go.”
They nodded their heads knowi
ngly. “Helluva thing,” said Bill.
“Yeah. Hey,” he motioned to me. “This is Joe Warren, the guy I told you about?”
Bill offered me his hand. I shook it. “Welcome aboard,” he said.
“Hello Joe, I’m Joan Cole, shift supervisor.” She offered me her hand first, followed by the clipboard. I took both in turn. “I need you to fill this out then we’ll get started.”
“Thanks.” I stared down at the clipboard. It was a W-4. I started completing the form, and stopped. The social security boxes stared back at me. I had no idea what the number was supposed to be. I glanced up.
Joan frowned. “Problem?”
I blanched. “Yeah, uh, I’m...drawing a blank. Total mind freeze, you know?”
Grant glared at me. I was supposed to have this down cold. I swallowed.
“Thought you said this guy was smart?” she said to Grant.
He rolled his eyes, instantly back in character. “Thought he was.”
Joan smirked and patted my hand. “First day jitters, right? Don’t worry about it. We can take care of that later.”
She took the clipboard back from me and set it down on the security desk. “Why don’t you come with me?” she said. “I’ll show you the ropes.”
I smiled weakly at Grant and followed Joan. She led me first into the security offices and gave me my uniforms, then showed me to a dingy locker room. I sat down on a wooden bench and pulled on the trousers and shirt, storing my own clothes in a steel locker. Beside mine, another locker stood padlocked securely, the name ‘Jim Otis’ clearly visible on the nameplate. I wondered if this was where Grant had stored the M107. I traced my fingers along the surface, but then pulled away.
In a few more days, this would all be over, and maybe I’d be able to return to something resembling a normal life. Assuming my plan worked. Tucking my shirt in, I closed my own locker and left the room.
On the other side of the door, Joan waited, impatiently swinging her arms. “All set?”
I nodded, and she led me out onto the floor.
The Old Post Office building had a central atrium featuring numerous shops and eateries. Oriental, Indian, Cajun, Mexican and Italian restaurants effused the air with competing, even contradictory odors, generating an olfactory response in prospective customers delicately balanced between hunger and nausea. Or maybe it was just me. Bright sunlight filtered through glass panels in the ceiling, pouring past steel girders at the roof of the second floor and spilling onto the round tables and the stage on the ground level where people congregated and spoke to each other over the noise from a jazz quartet. A large staircase invited tourists to the second floor, with more tables overlooking the performance area below. Tall flags invited us to “Take Time to Tour the Tower” beside glass elevators rising to the top. I stared through the girders at the skylight above, appreciating for the first time just how large the building was.
“You’ve worked security before, right?”
I glanced back at Joan. “Some.”
“Mm hmm. Doing what?”
I gave her the answer Grant drilled into me. “A bit of mall security. Babysat a pharmacy, that sort of thing.”
“Mm hmm. This won’t be all different from that. Course we gotta check bags and scan visitors, and you do have people doing shoplifting and teenagers getting rowdy and such. Speak in a firm, controlled voice, that’ll defuse most situations.”
I walked with her up the steps to the second floor. “Things ever get out of hand?”
“Oh sometimes. There was a bad altercation few years back. Some poor Indian kid got stabbed.”
“Stabbed?”
“Mm hmm. It was in all the papers. Surprised you don’t remember it. ‘Course, that was all outside the building. We wouldn’t have let it happen in here. This is important now, so listen up.” She stopped and wagged a finger at me. “We are not law-enforcement officers. Our job is to protect the safety first, and security second, of the people and the premises. We do rounds every fifteen minutes on the first two floors, and once an hour through the whole building. Last company that was in here wasn’t quite so diligent as all that, and they ain’t here no more, are they?”
“No, Ma’am. Don’t want that to happen to us.”
“You catch on quick.” She started walking again. “We’ll go up to the Tower next. That’s one of the places you’ll be stationed. Tower’s open to the air, and it gets a lot of traffic. You’ll spend a lot of time up there, and I ain’t gonna lie. It gets pretty dull. Main thing is just to keep people off the wires.”
“Wires?”
“Yep. Got safety wires on three of the four windows. Fourth is plexiglass. Don’t know why they didn’t just cover ‘em all that way. Anyway, tourists like to take pictures, and they’re always moving the wires to get a better shot. Wires are there for a reason, y’know? Don’t need nobody jumping or falling outta no windows. Not on my watch.”
She led me into one of the glass elevators and took us to the top floor. I watched the shops and restaurants drop away as we ascended. At the top of the shaft, she led me out of the elevator and onto the observation deck. Large, red steps girded by thick handrails led the way down to the floor of the deck. Around us, tourists wandered from window to window, peering over the ledge to the city that sprawled out below us. Directional markers conveniently labeled each set of windows as ‘North,’ ‘South,’ ‘East,’ and ‘West.’
She first introduced me to Terry, a younger jarhead doing his best to look stern, but succeeding only in looking annoyingly bored.
“Terry, this is Joe Warren. Otis’ friend.”
“Jim boy’s back?”
“Yes he is.”
“Good. Maybe he can pay me the fifty bucks he owes me.”
She grinned. “I’ll send him up on rounds next time.”
“Just tell him to bring his wallet. Good to meet you, Joe.”
I shook his hand and followed her down the steps.
“You into politics?” she said when I joined her at the bottom.
“Not really.” Another carefully coached lie.
“Ah, you should be. Gotta vote, you know?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, I vote and stuff—”
She grinned. “That’s alright. I’m just yanking your chain. You pulled duty up here on Inauguration Day. Means you won’t get to watch the speeches. No, you can watch them, you just can’t hear them. Gotta do it from up here, know what I’m saying? ‘Course, we’ll be closed, this being a national holiday and all, but we still gotta guard the tower. Secret Service don’t want to repeats of Dallas.”
“Yeah. Grant said I’d probably pull duty that day.”
“Who?” She glanced my way, furrowing her brow
I stared at her, unsure what she meant.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said, ‘Grant.’ Who’s Grant?”
Oh crap, I thought.
Thirty-Six
“Grant’s a friend,” I explained. “He used to do this job.”
She frowned.
“Probably with the other company. The one that used to work here?”
Her eyebrows rose doubtfully. “Is that so?”
The situation was not improving. “I guess.”
“You ain’t some sort of spy are ya?”
“A spy, ma’am?”
“Sure. Come to see how we operate, take the intel back to the other company and help them outbid our contract. Next thing you know, we’re all out on the street.”
“No, ma’am.”
“Course if you was, you’d lie about, wouldn’t ya?”
I forced a laugh. “I’m not a spy, ma’am.”
“I got my eye on you now. You best watch yourself.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Mm hmm. Let me show you around.” She excused herself past several tourists, scolding one preteen boy about the wires, and led me to a corner. “Two main things to keep in mind here. One, when you’re stationed here, just try to keep a good
, steady patrol. You can see most everything from the top step. Keep an eye on people, move around. Don’t be predictable. Now when you do rounds up here, you’ll need to come and check behind the displays, look and make sure ain’t nothing there that ain’t supposed to be there. You gots a flashlight, you use it. Go on and take a look now.”
I pulled out the Mag Light and switch it on, inadvertently flashing it into my face. Stepping around to the display, I made a show of checking all around it, behind it, beneath it. I glanced back and shook my head. She pressed her lips together and looked down, swinging one foot as she balanced against the ledge. Over her shoulder, I could see the other display board. I checked it, too, with the same result.
She nodded, pleased. “All right then. Our rounds up here are done. Now we work our way down through each floor till we get to the office, then you can fill out your report.”
We waved farewells to Terry, and she led me back into the elevator and took me down a floor to the row of offices on the next level. We inspecting each floor in the same way, checking the rooms that were open, and ensuring the rooms that were supposed to be locked still were, before finally returning to the ground level.
***
Around eight o’clock I took dinner with Grant, grabbing something unremarkable from the Chinese restaurant and using our ten percent employee discount. Grant was fresh out of cash, thanks to his poker debt with Terry, leaving me an opportunity to make good for not remembering my social security number. He let me have it anyway.
“You trying to blow this mission?” he asked, unwrapping his roast beef.
“I said I was sorry.”
“Sorry ain’t gonna cut it if you pull this down around our ears.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”