The presidential motorcade pulled out of the White House gates on to Pennsylvania Avenue at 11:30 a.m., hung a right and headed for the Capitol. Inside, distributed among several cars, were the outgoing President, his wife, the outgoing Vice President and his wife, Cozzano, Mary Catherine, James, Eleanor Richmond, and her two children Clarice and Harmon, Jr. Eleanor's mother was already in her place at the Capitol, attended by a couple of nurses.
The outgoing and incoming presidents sat across from each other in the back of the presidential limousine and made small talk. The motorcade wound around a couple of corners, getting past the Treasury and Western Plaza, and finally pulled on to the long uninterrupted stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue that ran straight to the Capitol. William A. Cozzano bent down and peered through the window, across the front seat, through the windshield, and down to the Capitol, where the temporary podium was clearly visible. Federal Triangle was on the right; half a bloc ahead rose the towering spire of the Old Post Office.
Cozzano reached across his body with his left hand, grabbed the limousine's door handle and popped the door open.
"What are you doing?" the outgoing President said.
"Quite frankly, I have no idea," Cozzano said. He jumped out of the limousine, which was traveling at a slow jogger's pace. The driver, seeing what was happening, braked the limousine to a stop.
"But-"
Cozzano leaned into the open door. "Don't worry," he said, "I think everything's going to be okay." Then he slammed the door and strode southward across the intersection.
By now the entire motorcade had come to a halt. Mary Catherine and James had jumped out of their limousine and run forward to join Cozzano, who plunged directly into the crowd lining the parade route. He was followed by a number of Secret Service agents; but although the crowd opened wide to accept the Cozzanos, it closed ranks behind them, forming a dense wall of bodies.
Large bodies. It seemed that this entire section of the parade route was lined with men no shorter than six foot six, and no lighter than two hundred and seventy-five pounds. The Secret Service men tried to elbow their way through, but elbows had no effect on these guys.
Eventually they got through by drawing guns. By that time, the Cozzanos had disappeared. Again.
The Federal Triangle Metro station was half a block away on Twelfth Street. Like all of the stations in the D.C. Metro system, it included an elevator for wheelchair users. Rufus Bell was standing in that elevator, leaning against the door to keep it from closing, and he had an empty wheelchair with him.
The Cozzanos arrived at a dead sprint, pursued only by a few autograph seekers. James and Mary Catherine got on first, then Cozzano followed, spinning around as he came through the door and slamming down ass-first into the wheelchair. Bell let the door slide closed and then the elevator began to drop.
Mary Catherine was standing to the left of the wheelchair, a heavy purse slung over her shoulder. She unclasped it and opened it up.
"Here goes nothing," Cozzano said.
His left hand reached into Mary Catherine's purse, rummaged around, and pulled out a black box with four metal prongs on the end. He squeezed the trigger once, testing it, and a purple lightning bolt snapped between the prongs.
"I already tested it, Dad," Mary Catherine said affectionately, her voice already getting thick with emotion.
"I know you did, peanut," Cozzano said.
Then he shoved the prongs into the side of his head and pulled the trigger.
His body convulsed so violently that it threw him half out of the wheelchair. James and Mary Catherine stood well away until the high-voltage current had stopped blasting through Cozzano's body. His arm snapped out into a stiff-arm position, as though fending off a linebacker from Arcola or Rantoul, and the stun gun flew across the elevator car, bounced off the wall, and clattered to the floor. Rufus Bell picked it up and shoved it back into Mary Catherine's purse.
Mary Catherine had gone into an unemotional, doctorly mode. She grabbed one of her father's arms and got James to take the other one, and they righted his limp body in the wheelchair, then buckled the lap belt.
The elevator doors opened; they were on the platform of the Metro station. A Blue Line train bound for Addison Road was sitting on the tracks, waiting for them; the doors had been physically blocked open by more members of the Cozzano crew, and the D.C. Chief of Police himself, still resplendent in his full dress uniform, was standing at the head of the train, talking to the conductor.
Bell wheeled Cozzano out of the elevator, across the platform, and on to the train. The doors closed behind them and the train began to move. They had a whole car to themselves; sheets of newsprint had already been taped up along the insides of the windows so that none of the shocked tourists on the platform could capture an image of the unconscious President-elect in film or video.
Mary Catherine pulled a stethoscope out of her purse, stuck it in her ears, and held it up to her father's chest. "He's got a normal rhythm," she said. "It sounds good."
Cozzano was not unconscious, just dazed. Mary Catherine pulled a small white tube out of her pocket, snapped it in half, and held it up under Cozzano's nose. Cozzano's brow furrowed, his eyes rolled around in their sockets, and he snapped his head away from the smell.
Lights flashed by, illuminating the papered-over windows. They had rolled through the Smithsonian station without stopping and were now swinging through the broad curve that would take them eastward into L'Enfant Plaza.
Two Yellow Line trains, pointed in opposite directions, were being held for them at L'Enfant Plaza. One of them was a northbound train that could take them straight back up to the Archives station, right along the parade route. They could re-emerge at that point and continue on to the Capitol as if nothing had happened.
The other train was southbound. It could take them to National Airport, where a private jet was waiting for them. It would take them far away, if that was necessary. Hopefully, it would take them somewhere with good hospitals.
The train doors opened to reveal L'Enfant Plaza. Their way out on to the platform was lined with large and serious-looking men. Standing right in the middle was Mel Meyer.
Bell wheeled Cozzano out on to the platform and right up to Mel, who kneeled down and looked Cozzano in the face. He grabbed one of Cozzano's limp hands and squeezed it, then reached up and patted his friend gently on the cheek. His face was tight, a study in controlled intensity. "Willy," he said. "Willy, do you feel like being President today? Or do you feel like going to a nice rehab center in Switzerland? You have to give me some indication either way."
Cozzano's head had been rolling around loosely. Finally, with some effort, he raised it up and looked Mel in the eye.
"Let's take this thing downtown," he said
Mel stood up. His eyes were glistening. He turned toward one of the crew. "You heard the President," he said, "tell the guys at the airport we won't be needing them."
The escalator at Archives brought the Cozzanos up into the sunlight only a few minutes after the presidential motorcade had gone by. A phalanx of some thirty-six ex-NFL players, hand-picked by Rufus Bell for their height and bulk, materialized around them. Cozzano was on his feet now, still a little unsteady, supported on either side by ex-Bears. The phalanx got itself organised and then accelerated to a slow jog, moving en masse into the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue and heading straight for the Capitol, two-thirds of a mile away. The crowd along Pennsylvania had begun to disperse, believing that all the important people had already gone past them, and none of them knew what to make of the solid bloc of beefy men - some of them quite famous in their own right -who ran down the center of the avenue in right formation, headed straight for the Inauguration, surrounded by M-16-toting outriders on foot, car, and motorcycles.