Part 44. The End of One
Jack Adams, the Secret Service agent charged with assassinating President George W. Bush and being held for psychiatric evaluation, has told the psychiatrist the 'public' story. In a computer file secretly delivered to his children, he has revealed the 'real story.' Now we leave him where we found him: on a runway in the woods of Maryland.
Quincy. Abigail. What I did I did for love. I mean taking the rap for her. Abandoning the two of you. There was no other way. They can't have their First Lady seen as Lady Macbeth. They just can't. They'll keep her under strict surveillance, as they most assuredly will me as well. Either way, I was never going to have my life back and you were never going to see me again. At least this way I can live with the fantasy that it might happen some day. Some day I may turn a corner or look up from my espresso and there you will be coming down the street. You may be old; you may not have your children with you; it may only be one of you. But I would see you. I might even say buon giorno.
I can hear the jets revving up now. We are inching into position for takeoff. All I can see on both sides of the plane are banks of trees just beyond the frosty field. It must be terribly cold for the dew to last this long. It will be warmer where I am going.
They made a deal, you see. The two Committees. The aisle disappeared and they became for the first time a nonpartisan body of a single mind on this one matter. Finally, they do what is best for the country. Don't believe it, not for a minute. They are doing what is best for them, for their own self interests. After all, who would ever trust law enforcement again if a man could work his way through all the ranks to the topmost security position and turn out to have a psychological profile capable of murdering a sitting president? What would that say about Homeland Security? Who would ever feel safe in their beds again? How could the men and women who appoint such a man be trusted with national security if they can't even choose a bodyguard correctly?
Right about now the new president is finished reading her version of this tale and my children are staring at a blank computer screen. And you, Dear Reader? Are you laughing? Are you trembling? Do you like the manipulated history they have fed you? Or are you one of the Z Generation who prefers Fictional News, the kind that reverberates with sarcastic Truth? Do you think Rawhide—I mean Reagan—was smart enough to bankrupt the Soviet Union by ratcheting up the defense budge beyond the USSR's ability to match it? Or do you think it was just dumb luck—their moral bankruptcy and the bureaucratic ineptitude of the Russian politburo?
Or are you one of the third type, the citizen grown cynical and weary, who thinks it doesn't matter because anyone who wants to run for office either is—or will become—a greedy egoist? Welcome to my world.
I'm going to wrap this up now, Reader. Jake, the co-pilot, just came to tell me some startling—if inevitable—news. The reason we have been sitting here so long waiting for clearance to take off is because the world is in a bit of a scramble. It was reported about half an hour ago that a nuclear device was detonated somewhere in the Middle East, and that fifteen minutes after that a second and then a third blast followed. There are no details yet, and initial reports are conflicting. Evidently intelligence satellites show the first explosion occurred in Lebanon and the next two happened somewhere between Tel Aviv and Tehran and that tracking indicates a missile originating in Israel probably delivered the first payload. But right now it is all speculation. Speculation and chaos, I should imagine. My guess is everyone is right. There were probably explosions in both of those capitals, but who was first will be debated. In truth, who was first hardly matters. And probably by now there are others. Everywhere from Karachi to Mumbai to Kabul. After all, it was just a matter of time, wasn't it? I was hoping it wouldn't come until President Pelosi had her feet on more solid ground. Oh, well—on-the-job training.
We have been cleared for takeoff, a direct okay from Langley, The White House, and the Italian government. The sooner the better, so far as I'm concerned. Now I have to pray that they don't change their minds before we touch down outside of Venice. The whole world has gone mad. I just hope I can disappear into the pandemonium. Perhaps this latest 'event' will afford me the opportunity to be forgotten. From my lips to God's ear.
Here we go racing down the runway. Now we are lifting up at an impossibly steep angle; much more dramatic than being on Air Force One, at least from inside the plane. Up, up, up toward the sun, so fast it takes my breath away.
