Gilmore had waited at Levy’s apartment for him to come home, and while he waited, Alice waited, too, with the three agents who had been involved the night Hopper was killed. When Gilmore approached Levy with a drawn weapon, one of Alice’s men shot out the window next to Levy’s head, which not only startled Gilmore but also gave Levy the impression that Gilmore was the one who had taken the shot. Then Gilmore was killed before he could shoot Levy.
Now all Dillon could do was wait and see if Levy would do as he predicted after reading Levy’s file. If he didn’t, Dillon might soon find himself in the crosshairs of a sniper’s rifle aimed by one of the sentinels who guarded the Unknowns’ Tomb. Dillon didn’t know exactly what was going to happen next, but he did know one thing for sure: John Levy would never testify against Charles Bradford.
41
Levy parked his car and walked across the damp grass toward the tomb.
It was five A.M. and the only one there was a solitary sentinel. The young man was tall and slender and wore a black coat with light-blue epaulets and dark blue pants with a yellow stripe down the side. The short bayonet on his rifle had been polished until it shone like silver in the dawn light. And the sentinel marched just as John Levy had marched all those years ago. Exactly as Levy had marched. The twenty-one slow steps, the twenty-one-second pause before the turn, the click of the heels coming together, the choreographed movement of the rifle shifting to the shoulder farther from the grave.
The sentinel didn’t know Levy was watching-he thought he was all alone in the morning mist-and yet he performed the time-honored routine as if the whole world were watching. Levy was so proud of the young soldier-and wished so badly that he could be the one, right now, walking those measured steps on that hallowed ground.
Levy approached the tomb so the guard could see him and saluted. The guard didn’t respond, of course, but he must have been surprised to see Levy there at that time of day and must have wondered how he’d gotten into the cemetery. But he didn’t stop marching-nor would he, unless Levy attempted to desecrate the grave he protected. Then he’d kill Levy if he had to.
From his position, Levy could see the sentry, the magnificent tomb he guarded, and beyond that row after row of white headstones. There were small American flags near many of the headstones. The top of the Washington Monument was just visible in the distance.
He stood there, in that one spot, never moving, until the sun was above the horizon.
He witnessed a perfect sunrise.
His last sunrise.
“Imagine,” Dillon later said to Claire, “that you had devoted your entire life to God. Imagine that you joined a monastery and took vows of silence and chastity and poverty and prayed six times a day, every day, all your adult life, because your belief in God was so strong, your commitment to Him so great. And then one day, in walks an old man and gives you irrefutable proof that God doesn’t exist.”
Dillon sat with Claire and two of her technicians in the operations room. Through a speaker, he heard Alice.
He’s leaving the cemetery.
Fifteen minutes later:
He’s entering the Pentagon.
“Claire,” Dillon said, “tie into whatever frequency Pentagon security uses for their radios.” Claire nodded to one of the technicians.
Ten minutes later the silence in the operations room was shattered:
Red, red, red! I repeat, red! We need medics to the Chairman’s office, now! Now!
The man speaking was screaming. Two minutes of silence followed.
Where are those medics, goddammit? Where are they?
They’re on the E-ring. They’ll be there in another minute. An ambulance is waiting at the entrance.
Forsythe, take Henderson with you and accompany the general.
Roger that. Where are they taking him?
Arlington General.
Four minutes of silence.
Forsythe. Status.
A siren could be heard in the background.
We’re three minutes from the hospital, sir.
Two minutes later:
This is Gregory Hamilton.
Hamilton was the Secretary of Defense.
Captain, what the hell happened?
Sir, General Bradford was shot.
I know that! But who shot him?
John Levy, sir.
42
DeMarco had been awake for half an hour. He was sitting in the living room of the farm/safe house in Maryland, sipping coffee, watching the morning news. His unsociable bodyguards were in the kitchen, ignoring him as usual. He was wearing the pants, shirt, and shoes he’d worn to Bradford’s office. The suit coat that contained the listening devices had been taken from him-which didn’t surprise him-but they also took away the new belt they gave him and insisted he put on his own. This made him wonder if there had been something special about the new belt or if they wanted him to wear his old belt for some particular reason-because it was bugged or had a tracking device installed. His paranoia made him suspect the latter.
The news guy was going on about a tornado that had wiped out a trailer park in Kansas-which made DeMarco think about Dorothy and her red shoes and the Wizard of Oz-but then the newscaster was abruptly replaced in midsentence by Katie Couric, who was sitting behind her desk in the CBS newsroom with a serious expression on her face.
“We have breaking news,” Katie said. “The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Bradford, has been shot. All we know at this point is that the general was in his office at the Pentagon when the shooting occurred, and he’s been taken to a hospital in Arlington, Virginia.”
DeMarco was as stunned as Katie appeared to be. His first thought was: I wonder who shot the bastard? His second thought was: Maybe if he dies, Dillon will let me get back to my life.
For the next ten minutes, all Katie did was demonstrate how little information the network had, but she made the best of it. The station showed an aerial view of the Pentagon, photos of Bradford with the president, photos of Bradford in combat fatigues, including one of him standing next to a bombed-out bunker in Iraq. Katie filled up airtime by talking about Bradford’s career and then began to wonder out loud how anyone could penetrate the Pentagon’s security and shoot the nation’s highest ranking military officer. The picture then cut to a reporter standing in front of a hospital, who told Katie that he didn’t know zip and that he and all the other reporters were waiting for somebody to come out and tell them what was going on.
A man in an army uniform walked out of the hospital a moment later and took up a position facing the reporters. He introduced himself as Colonel Andrew somebody and said he was the public affairs officer at the Pentagon. He started off by saying that General Bradford had been shot in the shoulder, and although one of his lungs had been nicked, he was expected to make a full recovery. The reporters immediately started yelling questions, the main one being, Who the hell shot Bradford? The public affairs guy got a funny look on his face, like what he had to say was really painful, and finally answered the mob.
“The general was shot by a man named John Levy. Mr. Levy was a civilian employee at the Pentagon who worked for the Pentagon Force Protection Agency.”
Whoa! the reporters exclaimed.
The Pentagon spokesman waited until the uproar died down, then added, “It appears Mr. Levy had some sort of mental breakdown. We don’t know, at this point, why he tried to kill the general.”
“So where’s this guy Levy now?” a reporter demanded. The colonel gave the reporters an irritated look, the look seeming to say, If you damn people would just shut up, I’d tell you.