This 44-part series began running in WCT Nov. 8. Readers can read all the installments to date at www.windycitymediagroup.com
From the journal of John 'Jack' Quincy Adams, Chief Secret Service Special Agent in Charge, The White House. Code Name: One.
Part 40. Saving The Woman He Loves
Jack Adams, the Secret Service agent charged with assassinating President George W. Bush and being held for psychiatric evaluation, has told the psychiatrist the 'official' story of how the president died. In a computer file secretly delivered to his children, he now reveals the 'real story.'
Laura set down her iced coffee, went to the door, then turned and said to me, 'I'm going to bed. I want to get up early tomorrow and organize the closets. They're a mess. I may want to address these bookshelves, too. I've only gotten up to the 300's in here and most of these books are mysteries and baseball biographies. These shelves are a disgrace to Mr. Dewey. Goodnight, Jack.' And out she padded, demure as a cat.
The rest, of course, you know from the newspapers. I called out to the trailer like I said in the official journal, the document Haber turned in, and everybody came running. But before I did that, I had a few other things to do and I had to do them quickly.
I ran after Laura, catching up to her just as she reached their bedroom door. 'Laura, wait,' I said. She stopped and turned toward me. I reached out and slipped the Medic Alert medallion from around her neck and replaced it with mine. Then I placed hers around my own neck. 'There,' I said. 'That's all. Good night.' She smiled a heart-wrenching smile, patted me on the shoulder and closed the door. There had been tears in her eyes, but she didn't look defeated or sorry or weak. She looked like what I imagine Medea must have looked like after she slaughtered her children, having carried out her fate the way it was preordained.
Next, I returned to the study and took my flag pin out of the pillbox and clipped it back to my jacket. Then I grabbed Laura's glass, went to the kitchen and put it in the dishwasher. Then I called the trailer.
The doctor pronounced him dead right there on the office floor. Then all hell broke loose, because somebody—one of the Pinschers, I think—said 'We'd better call the vice president,' and everybody looked at one another and froze. I have never been big on taking photographs, as you both know from family vacations. I think when you carry a camera around, you tend to rely on it to be your memory and then you miss the experience itself. But the look on all our faces that night was worth a snapshot. I swear there was dead silence for a full thirty seconds before someone said, 'Oh, my God, there is no vice president.'
By that time Raife, who had flown in that day for a meeting the following evening was standing next to me. He said, 'We have to get a full team to Pelosi immediately.' Then he ordered one of the agents to call headquarters. 'Jesus, Jack, what happened?'
He was looking at me like I had the answer.
'What happened? Are you asking me what happened?' I stammered.
'Yeah, what went down in here? Did he just all of a sudden start choking or gasping or what? Was he…what was he doing?'
'We were just having a little Dr. Pepper like we do every night.' For some reason, maybe just old-school SS training, I decided to keep Laura out of it. I know from decades of experience that you can reveal facts one at a time when you're recreating an event or a scenario, but you can't take a fact back once you've spoken it. And 'shock' or momentary loss of memory is always a viable excuse for having forgotten some detail in a situation like this one. 'Then the next thing I knew he was calling my name and when I turned, he was collapsing. I rushed over there, but it was too late. I mean I thought it was too late. I called the trailer and everybody came running.'
Raife gave me a certain look he gives and I knew the jig was up. He has the most infallible intuition of any man I ever met. It's why he is in the job he holds. He's like the country's prize-winning Bloodhound: he smells a red herring even when it's in a Zip-Lock bag buried in the middle of a swamp.
Raife walked back to the trailer and started making phone calls. 'The president is dead; long live the Republic.' That's what he said before he walked outside. I wasn't sure what the hell he meant by it, but it sounded good. Dramatic. Like Raife. He reads a lot. Watches a lot of Masterpiece Theater. And he looked straight at me when he said it. I was, as of that moment, officially warned.
