Where was he?
The press gallery? Had the assassin been infiltrated using false press credentials? Easily done, of course, but too far from the front of the room for an accurate shot.
He would almost certainly have to be using a small firearm, probably a handgun. Anything else would be too detectable within the space of the room. This was not a classic sniper situation with a rooftop and a rifle. He would have to use a pistol. Somehow he had to have smuggled a pistol into the room.
Which meant he would have to be within the killing field. He would have to be located somewhere at close range. In theory, a handgun is accurate at distances of three hundred feet or more, but the closer you can get, the more accurate, the more reliable, the shot.
Now I was out of the line of sight of the security guards who had admitted me through the second checkpoint.
Swallowing hard, I wheeled up the ramp and directly into the room.
Another uniformed guard stood by the entrance.
“Excuse me-”
But this time I plunged ahead, ignoring the guard. My calculation was accurate: he would not leave his post to chase down a man in a wheelchair.
Now I was in the main room. I scanned the crowded rows of seats. It was impossible to see everyone, but I knew he had to be here, had to be here somewhere!
Where-who-was the assassin?
Seated among the spectators?
I turned now toward the front of the room, where the senators sat at a raised mahogany semicircle. Some of them consulted notes; others held their hands over microphones planted in front of them as they chatted.
Behind them, against the wall, was a row of aides, well-dressed young men and women. In front of the high mahogany podium was a row of three stenographers, two women and one man, sitting at their keyboards, typing away silently with lightning speed.
And behind the row of senators, at the precise center, was a door, toward which the eyes of all spectators were trained. The room fairly crackled with tension. That was the door through which the senators entered. It had to be the door through which Sinclair would enter.
The assassin had to be within a hundred feet or so of that door.
So where the hell was he?
And who the hell was he?
I looked over toward the witness table, which faced the row of senators. It was empty, awaiting the surprise witness. Behind it was an empty row of chairs, cordoned off, probably for security reasons. A few rows behind the witness table I saw Truslow, dressed immaculately in a double-breasted suit. Despite having just returned from Germany, he didn’t look a bit tired; his silver hair was combed and parted neatly. Was there a glint of triumph, of satisfaction, in his eyes? Beside him sat his wife, Margaret, and a couple I took to be his daughter and son-in-law.
I wheeled slowly down the side aisle, toward the front of the room. People glanced toward me, then quickly away, in that manner I’d become accustomed to.
It was time to begin.
Once again I scanned the layout of the entire room, affixing it pictorially in my memory. There were a limited number of positions from which a gunman could fire, hit his target-and plausibly attempt to escape.
I breathed deeply, tried to get my thoughts in some semblance of order. Rule out any positions beyond three hundred feet.
No-rule out any beyond two hundred feet. And within one hundred feet, the odds increased astronomically.
All right. Of those positions within one hundred feet, by far the most likely were those situated close to an exit. That meant, since the only exits were in the front or in the back, that the gunman would very likely be seated or standing front-center, front-right, or front-left.
Next… of those, rule out any without a direct line of fire to the witness stand. Which meant I could safely rule out ninety-five percent of the seats in the room.
From where I was I could see mostly backs of heads. The assassin might be a man or a woman, which meant I couldn’t rely on the standard search image-the youngish, physically fit male. No; they were too clever. I couldn’t discount the possibility that it was a woman.
Children were rule-outs… but an adult midget might pose as a child: bizarre, yes, but I could not afford to rule out the bizarre. Everyone within the area I had selected would have to be scrutinized. Systematically, I sighted each person in a strategic firing position, and was able to rule out only two: a young girl in a Peter Pan collar who really was a young girl; and a distinguished-looking old woman who my instincts told me really was an old woman.
If my calculations were right, then, that brought the pool of likely suspects down to perhaps twenty individuals, all near the front of the room.
Move.
I accelerated the wheelchair’s pace until I neared the front. Then I slowed, and veered the chair to within a few inches of the people seated at the ends of the aisles.
Here and there I felt a jolt of recognition, but the audience, naturally, was filled with familiar faces. Not friends of mine, certainly, but dignitaries. Personalities. The sort of people who are written up in The Washington Post Style section, who appear on Larry King Live.
Where was he?
Focus. Dammit, I had to focus, to concentrate my powers of perception, to parse the ambient room noise from thought noise. And then separate the usual babble of human thought from the thoughts of a man or woman who was preparing to carry out a public, excruciatingly tense, methodically executed assassination. These would be the thoughts of someone concentrating with great intensity.
Focus.
Nearing a man in a three-piece suit-sandy-haired and early thirties, the build of a football player, seated at the end of the fourth row-I bowed my head and rolled by slowly as if I were finding it difficult to maneuver.
And heard:… make partner or not and when? Because ah sweet Jesus if I don’t know by… An attorney; Washington crawled with them.
Keep on.
Next, a scruffy-looking late-teenage boy, acne-scarred face, dressed in an army-navy surplus peacoat. Too young? And it came: won’t call me because I’m not going to call her first…
A woman who looked to be in her late fifties, primly dressed, sweet face, ruby red lipstick. Poor man how does he get around the poor soul? She was thinking about me, it had to be.
I rolled a little faster now, head still bowed.
fucking nest of spies hope they fucking do away with the goddamn thing totally. A tall man in his late forties in a work shirt, earring in his left ear, ponytail.
Was he possible? Not what I expected; not the intense, laser-beam concentration of a professional killer.
I stopped two feet from him, focused.
Focused.
get home I finish the piece tonight maybe revise tomorrow morning see what the Times op-ed editor thinks.
No. A writer, a political activist. Not a killer.
Now I had reached the front row and began slowly to wheel down the aisle, across the very front of the room, extremely conspicuous.
People were staring at me, wondering where I was going. Guy’s going to just wheel all the way across are they allowed to do that?
And: so close to all these senators how can I get closer-
Stop!
get their autographs if they’ll let me…
Move.
An ash-blond woman in her fifties, anorexic-looking, with sunken cheeks, the too-tight facial skin that comes from excessive plastic surgery-a Washington socialite, from the look of her:… chocolate mousse with raspberry sauce or maybe a nice big slab of apple flan with a mountain of vanilla ice cream and don’t I deserve it I’ve been so good…