“He tells me his researchers should have something more for me sometime this week,” said Howard. “We’re also tracking down the credit cards used to hire the car, right, Kelly?”
“Already in hand,” said Kelly. “The Justin Davies credit card was used to buy a one-way ticket to Los Angeles on US Air and for a number of purchases since. We’re concentrating the search in California.”
Howard gave them a rundown on his meeting with Andy Kim and Sheldon agreed to contact the Washington office and request that as many computer programmers as possible be seconded to the laboratory. “We’re going to need more manpower here in Phoenix, too,” he added. “I’m going to get McGrath to help Kelly out on the credit card side,” Sheldon said to Howard. “Do you need any help?”
Howard thought for a moment, then shook his head. “I can handle it,” he said. “Though I’d like to make contact myself with the Secret Service’s White House office.”
Sheldon agreed. “Let me speak to them first,” he said. “The Secret Service is always a bit touchy where protocol is concerned. I’ll get someone to call you.” He leant back in his chair. “Right, let’s get to it.” He smiled warmly at the two agents, though Howard had the distinct impression that it was meant more for Kelly than for him.
Joker pulled the metal tab on a can of Guinness and sipped the dark brew as he watched the game. Gaelic football took the most aggressive aspects of soccer, rugby and all-in wrestling and was played as much for the physical contact as for the score. The lunchtime matches in the park in the Bronx were a magnet for New York’s Irish community, and for those native New Yorkers who appreciated the finer points of grown men knocking the shit out of each other. It was a warm day and Joker had unbuttoned his pea jacket. Birds were singing in the tree branches overhead and he’d actually seen people smiling in the street as if they realised that summer wasn’t too far away. Joker walked over to a wooden bench and sat down next to a man in a blue anorak who was reading a newspaper. The man looked up as if defending his territory and Joker smiled and raised his can. “Do yer mind if I sit here?” he asked. The man shook his head and went back to his paper. Joker concentrated on the game. Most of the shouts he heard, from the players and from the spectators, were Irish, and he saw several bottles of Irish whiskey being handed around.
Joker wasn’t due behind the bar at Filbin’s until three o’clock and so he’d decided to leave Manhattan and cross to the Bronx. It was a pleasant enough borough in places and in some ways it reminded him of Glasgow, struggling to outgrow an image of deprivation and poverty which it no longer deserved. He’d spent most of his teenage years in Glasgow, and learnt to love it despite its rough edges, but it seemed that whenever he talked about the city to those who had never been there, the talk always turned to the Gorbals and the razor gangs. Joker had grown tired of explaining that the decaying tenement blocks of the Gorbals had long been torn down and that the bad guys in Glasgow now carried automatic weapons like bad guys everywhere.
Joker took a mouthful of Guinness and swallowed slowly, enjoying the taste and feel of the thick, malty brew. Joker had read that pregnant mothers used to be given a half pint of the Irish stout when they were in British hospitals, it was so full of vitamins and goodness. As he drank he looked over at the paper his neighbour was reading. It was the Belfast Telegraph. Joker began reading the headlines and the man looked up, an angry frown on his face. Joker looked away. He stood up and walked around the pitch, scanning faces and listening to accents, trying to pick up any information which would give him a lead to Matthew Bailey’s whereabouts. He recognised two men from Filbin’s; he didn’t know their names but the tall one with a black, bushy beard and thick eyebrows drank vodka and tonic, the other, red-faced with a paunch that drooped over his belt, preferred Guinness with an occasional malt whisky. One of them waved him over and he joined them. They both knew him by name and they chatted like old drinking buddies. Joker had another can of Guinness in his coat pocket and he offered it to them. The Guinness drinker accepted with a mock bow while the other bemoaned Joker for not carrying vodka and tonic with him. “What sort of fockin’ barman are yez anyway?” he laughed.
Joker confessed that he’d forgotten their names and they introduced themselves: the Guinness drinker was Tom, the other was Billy. As it always did when strangers from Belfast met, the conversation soon turned to the basics: where you went to school, where you lived, and who your family were. The answers to the three questions identified your religion, your politics, and your social standing, and woe betide the Protestant who supplied the wrong answers to a gathering of Catholics, and vice versa. Joker’s cover story was as ingrained as his real childhood, and he had no trouble convincing the two men that he was a working-class Catholic who’d left Belfast for Glasgow while still a teenager.
“What brings you to New York?” Billy asked.
“I was being paid under the table for the past couple of years, and the taxman got on my case,” said Joker, watching the teams run back onto the pitch. “Thought I’d lie low for a while.”
“Aye, it’s in a terrible state, the British economy,” said Tom, wiping white froth from his lips with the back of his hand. “Mind you, it’s not so great here. Yer wuz lucky getting the job at the bar, right enough.”
“Yeah, that was a break,” Joker agreed. “Friend of mine called me some time back, saying it was a good pub to hang out in.” He took a long pull at his Guinness and kept his eyes on the pitch as the game restarted. “Maybe you know him. Matthew Bailey.”
Both men shook their heads. “Can’t say the name rings a bell,” said Tom.
Billy leant forward conspiratorially. “Was he one of the boys?” he asked. He moved back and held up a hand. “Not that I’m prying, yez understand. It’s just that sometimes we have visitors who are a mite flexible about their names and origins, if yez get my drift.”
“Aye, I know what yer mean,” said Joker. “Better forget I asked. The telephone number he gave me has been disconnected, so I guess he’s moved on.” He stayed drinking and chatting with the two men until two-thirty, then wished them well and headed back to Manhattan. On the way to Filbin’s he used his Visa card in an automatic teller machine, withdrawing another $300 and slipping it into his wallet.
Cole Howard’s phone rang. “Agent Howard?” asked a crisp authoritative voice.
“Speaking,” said Howard. He had the photographs of the snipers spread out on his desk in front of him.
“My name’s Bob Sanger, I’m head of the Secret Service’s Intelligence Division. I’ve just been speaking to your boss; he said we should make contact.”
“Sounds good to me,” said Howard. “Where are you?”
Howard heard Sanger snort as if suppressing a laugh. “At the moment I’m about thirty thousand feet above San Bernardino en route to Andrews Air Force Base,” he said. Howard was surprised. The line was perfectly clear as if the call had been placed from the next room. “Can you get to the airport by ten-thirty?”
“Andrews?” said Howard, confused. He heard the snort again.
“No, Sky Harbour International,” he said, referring to the main international airport in Phoenix.
Howard looked at his wristwatch. It was just after 10 a.m. “Sure,” he said. He’d been assuming that he’d have to fly out to Washington to meet with the Secret Service representative. The opportunity of seeing him in Phoenix was a bonus.
“Come along to the General Aviation terminal, ask for me there,” said Sanger.
“Which plane will you be on?” Howard asked, reaching for a pen.
Sanger made the soft snorting sound again. “Don’t worry, Agent Howard,” he said. “You’ll have no trouble finding us.”
The line went dead, leaving Howard wondering what the Secret Service man had meant. He collected his car from the office parking lot and drove quickly to the airport, parking in front of the General Aviation terminal. As the electronic doors hissed open to allow him into the terminal building, he saw a line of airport workers and passengers standing in front of the large picture window which overlooked the tarmac. As he walked up to them he realised with a jolt what they were looking at. Standing alone was a majestic Jumbo Jet, resplendent in a blue and white livery with the gold and black presidential seal on its belly. Air Force One. The spectators stood in silence, awed by the glistening symbol of Presidential authority. The plane was in pristine condition as if it had just rolled off the Boeing assembly line. Howard stood behind two baggage handlers and watched as a team of overalled workers busied themselves refuelling the jet. They were being supervised by two men in dark suits wearing sunglasses and carrying walkie-talkies.
Howard frowned as he studied the plane. The President had no official visit scheduled for Phoenix that he knew of, and the FBI would have been informed as a matter of course. He headed for the doors which led to the tarmac. His way was barred by two more Secret Service agents, wearing matching sunglasses and black suits. Howard identified himself before reaching slowly into his jacket to pull out his ID. Both agents tensed and the one on the right, the younger of the two, began to move his hand towards his waist. Howard smiled and slowed his movements, opening the wallet and showing his FBI credentials.
The older agent carefully checked the ID. “Are you carrying, sir?” he asked. Howard shook his head. The agents relaxed and stepped to the side. The younger pushed open the door for Howard, his face unsmiling.
“Bob Sanger’s waiting for you on board, sir,” said the older agent. “Have a nice day.”
As Howard walked across the tarmac to the gleaming jet, he heard the younger agent talking into his walkie-talkie. There were half a dozen agents standing at various points around the plane and several looked at Howard as if they were checking him out. They had earpieces from which wires disappeared into the collars of their jackets. A gust of wind blew the back of one agent’s jacket up around his waist and Howard caught a glimpse of a machine pistol in a nylon holster in the small of his back. Even Howard, an eight-year veteran of the FBI, felt nervous under the scrutiny of the stone-faced men in dark suits.
The giant plane epitomised the power and the glory of the United States of America, both in its sheer size and its technological superiority, and it pulled at his insides the way the National Anthem and the raising of the Stars and Stripes always did. It was more than patriotism, more than pride, it was an instinctive reaction that he couldn’t have controlled if he’d wanted to. He felt as if he should salute the plane, or bow his head in reverence.
A flight of stairs led up to the main hatch and another Secret Service man stood at the bottom, a walkie-talkie in his hand. He motioned for Howard to go up the steps. They seemed to go on for ever and Howard began to truly appreciate the immense size of the plane. Yet another agent waited at the top of the stairs and he led Howard down a corridor to a large meeting room with eight white leather seats surrounding a boat-shaped mahogany table. A man in his mid-forties was sitting in one of the high-backed chairs, a walkie-talkie and a computer printout on the table in front of him. Unlike the rest of the Secret Service agents, he wore a pair of delicate pince-nez eyeglasses and had hung his jacket over the back of his chair. As Howard entered the room the man looked over the top of his glasses like a college professor disturbed in the middle of correcting papers. He smiled and removed the spectacles. “Agent Howard?” he asked. Howard nodded and the man stood up and shook his hand, introducing himself as Bob Sanger. He waved Howard to one of the empty seats as the agent closed the door, leaving the two men alone.
“Is the President here?” Howard asked, his voice almost a whisper.
Sanger smiled and shook his head. “No, he’s on the back-up plane today. This is SAM 28000, it’s been in for repairs to one of the communication systems, so the President has been using SAM 29000 for the last few weeks. They’re identical, though. In fact, right now the President is probably sitting in the duplicate of my chair.”
Howard looked around the plush room. “I can’t believe I’m having a meeting on Air Force One.”
Sanger sat back in his chair. “Strictly speaking, it’s only Air Force One when the President is on board. At the moment this is just a Boeing 747-200B with a presidential paint job. The President is due to visit Los Angeles in a couple of weeks and we’ve been putting the security teams there through their paces. As you can imagine, we’re still nervous about LA, after what happened in 1992.”
Howard nodded. He looked out of one of the windows and saw the refuelling teams move away from the plane. One of the men in overalls waved goodbye to a Secret Service agent but he was ignored. Several of the agents walked up the stairs to the plane, talking into their radios.
“We’re dropping into Dallas for a threat assessment meeting with the head of security there, and then we’re onto Washington,” Sanger continued. He saw the look of alarm flash across Howard’s face. “Don’t worry, Agent Howard, you’re not coming with us. The pilot’s under instructions to hold until you leave the plane. Do you want a coffee?” Howard shook his head. “Okay,” continued Sanger, “let’s get down to business. Jake tells me you think there’s going to be an attack on the President.”
“He told you about the video?”
“He did. Do you have it with you?”
Howard took it out of his jacket pocket and held it out to Sanger. The Secret Service man pointed to a television console and VCR and Howard went over to it and slotted in the cassette. Sanger removed his glasses and the two men watched the video in silence. When it had finished Sanger began polishing his glasses with a white linen handkerchief. “Have you identified the snipers yet?”
“No, but we think they are military-trained. Navy SEALs, maybe.”
Sanger raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think that?”
“The types of weapons they’re using, and the distances involved.”
Sanger nodded. “Okay, I’ll run through our quarterlies for you, to see if we’ve any military snipers.”
“Quarterlies?” said Howard.
“We keep a close eye on anyone who has ever threatened the President; it’s our equivalent of your Most Wanted List, but it’s a lot longer. We’ve about five hundred names on it at the moment, and our agents visit them every three months. That’s why we call them quarterlies. We’ve a watch list too, with approaching ten thousand names on it, but they’re not visited on such a regular basis. What we do is cross-check the names on the lists with hotel registers and company payrolls in the areas where the President is due to visit. If we get a match, we interview them and if necessary remove them for the duration of the visit. We’ll check the watch list for your snipers, too, of course, but to be honest they’re generally all talk. It’s the quarterlies we worry about.”