Shall We Tell the President? Read online

  After months of bargaining, bullying, cajoling and threatening the Gun Control bill was at last to be presented to the House for their final approval.

  This was to be the day when Florentyna made an indelible mark on American history. If she achieved nothing else during her term of office she would live to be proud of this single act.

  What could prevent it now? she asked for the thousandth time. And for the thousandth time the same dreadful thought flashed across her mind.

  She dismissed it once again.

  Thursday morning

  10 March

  5:00 A.M.

  The Director woke suddenly. He lay there, frustrated; there was nothing he could do at this hour except look at the ceiling and think, and that didn’t help much. He went over and over in his mind the events of the past six days, always leaving until last the thought of canceling the whole operation, which would probably mean even now that the Senator and his cohorts would get away scot-free. Perhaps they already knew and had disappeared to lick their wounds and prepare for another day. Either way it would remain his problem.

  The Senator woke at 5:35 in a cold sweat—not that he had really slept for more than a few minutes at any one time. It had been an evil night, thunder and lightning and sirens. It was the sirens that had made him sweat. He was even more nervous than he had expected to be; in fact just after he heard three chime he had nearly dialed the Chairman to say that he couldn’t go through with it, despite the consequences that the Chairman had so delicately, but so frequently, adumbrated. But the vision of President Kane dead beside him reminded the Senator that everybody even now could remember exactly where he was when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, and he himself was never going to be able to forget where he was when Florentyna Kane died. Even that seemed less appalling than the thought of his own name in the headlines, his public image irreparably damaged, and his career ruined. Even so, he nearly called the Chairman, as much for reassurance as anything, despite their agreement that they had contacted each other for the last time until late the following morning, when the Chairman would be in Miami.

  Five men had already died and that had caused only a ripple: President Kane’s death would reverberate around the world.

  The Senator stared out of the window for some time, focusing on nothing, then turned away. He kept looking at his watch, wishing he could stop time. The second hand moved relentlessly—relentlessly towards 10:56. He busied himself with breakfast and the morning paper. The Post informed him that many buildings had caught fire during the night in one of the worst storms in Washington’s history, and the Lubber Run in Virginia had overflowed its banks, causing heavy property damage. There was little mention of President Kane. He wished he could read tomorrow’s papers today.

  The first call the Director received was from Elliott, who informed him that the recent activities of Senators Dexter and Harrison revealed nothing new about the situation—not that the anonymous man knew exactly what the situation was. The Director grumbled to himself, finished his egg—sunny-side up—and read the Post’s description of the demonic weather that had assailed Washington during the night. He glanced out of the window at the day, now clear and dry. A perfect day for an assassination, he thought. The bright day that brings forth the adder. How late could he leave it before letting everyone know everything? The President was scheduled to leave the White House at 10:00 A.M. The Director would have to brief the head of the Secret Service, H. Stuart Knight, long before then and, if necessary, the President at least one hour before that. To hell with it, he would leave it to the last minute and make a full explanation afterward. He was willing to risk his career to catch this pernicious Senator red-handed. But risking the President’s life …

  He drove to the Bureau soon after 6:00. He wanted to be there a full two hours before Andrews to study all the reports he had ordered the evening before. Not many of his senior aides would have had much sleep last night, though they were probably still wondering why. They would know soon enough. His deputy Associate Director for Investigation, his Assistant Director for Planning and Evaluation, and the head of the Criminal Section of that division would help him decide if he should go ahead or cancel. His Ford sedan slid down the ramp to the underground parking lot and his reserved parking place.

  Elliott was there to meet him at the elevator—he was always there, never late. He’s not human, he’ll have to go, thought the Director, if I don’t have to go first. He suddenly realized that he could be handing his resignation in to the President that night. Which President? He put it out of his mind—that would all take care of itself in its own time, he must now take care of the next five hours.

  Elliott had nothing useful to say. Dexter and Harrison had both received and made phone calls during the night and early morning, but nothing incriminating had been picked up. No other information was forthcoming. The Director asked where the two senators were at that moment.

  “Both eating breakfast at their homes. Dexter in Kensington, Harrison in Alexandria. Six agents have been watching them since five o’clock this morning and have been detailed to follow them all day.”

  “Good. Report back to me immediately if anything unusual happens.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The fingerprint man was next. When he arrived, the Director first apologized for keeping him up all night, though the man’s face and eyes looked more alight and alive than his own had been in the shaving mirror that morning.

  Five feet four inches tall, slight and rather pale, Daniel Sommerton began his report. He was like a child with a toy. For him, working with prints had always been a passion as well as a job. The Director remained seated while Sommerton stood. If the Director had stood, he would not have been head and shoulders above him, but head, shoulders, and chest above him.

  “We have found seventeen different fingers, and three different thumbs, Director,” he said gleefully. “We’re putting them through the Ninhydrin rather than the iodine-fume process, since we were unable to do them one at a time for technical reasons that I won’t bother you with.”

  He waved his arm imperiously to imply that he would not waste a scientific explanation on the Director, who would have been the first to acknowledge such a pointless exercise.

  “We think there are two more prints we might identify,” Sommerton continued, “and we will have a readout for you on all twenty-two of them within two, at the most three hours.”

  The Director glanced at his watch—already 6:45.

  “Well done. That won’t be a minute too soon. Get me the results—even if they are negative—as quickly as possible, and please thank all of your staff for working through the night.”

  The fingerprint expert left the Director, anxious to return to his seventeen fingers, three thumbs and two unidentified marks. The Director pressed a button and asked Mrs. McGregor to send in the Assistant Director for Planning and Evaluation.

  Two minutes later, Walter Williams was standing in front of him.

  Five feet eleven, fair with a thin pallid face, dominated by a magnificent high-domed forehead, lined with amusement not grief, Williams was known in the Bureau either as the Brain or W.W. His primary responsibility was to head the Bureau’s think tank of six lesser but still impressive brains. The Director often confronted him with hypothetical situations to which W.W. would later provide an answer which often proved, in retrospect, to be the right one. The Director placed great faith in his judgment, but he could not take any risks today. W.W. had better come up with a convincing answer to his hypothetical question of last night or his next call would be to the President.

  “Good morning, Director.”

  “Good morning, W.W. What is your decision concerning my little problem?”

  “Most interesting, Director … I feel, to be fair, the answer is simple, even when we look at the problem from every angle.”

  For the first time that morning a trace of a smile appeared on the Director’s face.

  “Assuming