“I don’t have much experience disassembling a rifle,” he said dumbly.
Natasha ground the car into first gear and let the clutch out quickly. The car lurched forward with a squeal and almost stalled.
“I know,” she said. “Hang on.”
DeVere grabbed hold of the door handle. As the car rocked toward the exit he turned and watched a dust cloud rise behind them.
“Rear wheel drive,” he said dully. “You tossed me the rifle to get my trust, didn’t you?”
Instead of answering Natasha gunned the Nash across the parking lot past two men who stared open-mouthed. They see us and the car, deVere thought.
“And should I trust you?” he asked.
Natasha smiled thinly as she guided the car across the twisting parking lot behind the Depository and out onto Houston Street. “I could have killed you as you came up the hill and still made my shot. Plenty of bullets, a silencer on the rifle, no one else around. No one would have seen your body until after the motorcade had passed.”
DeVere sat, gripping the door handle. He still found it difficult getting used to no seatbelts. The car swayed with each turn.
“Why didn’t you?” he asked.
“If you can’t break it down, put it in the back seat,” she said.
“What? Oh.” DeVere turned and laid the rifle across the back seat.
“Cover it with the blanket,” she ordered.
Natasha removed her policeman’s cap and tossed it on top of the rifle just as deVere pulled a woolen Hudson Bay blanket over it.
“Did you get the shot off?” he asked.
“I did,” she answered.
“Did you get him?”
She just turned and looked at him.
“Why?” deVere asked.
“Because your plan had failed. Kennedy can’t be allowed to pull out of Vietnam this Sunday. And now he won’t,” she said simply.
DeVere ignored the switch in verb tense, a pattern he had found himself using since his arrival. He nodded dumbly.
“I thought you were someone else,” he said.
“As you can see, I’m not.”
“It wasn’t Collinson or Pomeroy. You were the Russian asking about recent defectors.”
Natasha nodded.
“You followed us back to New Hampshire,” deVere said. “It was never them.”
Natasha didn’t answer. She reached the main street and slowed the Nash. A police cruiser sped past in the opposite direction, its siren wailing and bubble light flashing. DeVere turned and watched it head toward Dealey Plaza. Natasha furtively followed it in her mirror.
“How?” deVere asked. “And why?”
“You weren’t going to convince Kennedy to invade Cuba, or stay in Southeast Asia. He had to be stopped. I told Rostov to bring the rifle with him to the lab. It’s a Dragunov SVD-S. The best. He even carried it up the stairs.”
She laughed derisively when she saw deVere’s confused expression. “He couldn’t exactly leave it in the cab now, could he? When he went in to the lab I crossed over the ceiling to your precious Accelechron you had so thoughtfully turned on for me. I had the pack with the Dragunov. I jumped in ahead of you by a couple of minutes and came back through the wormhole landing in the park with the cannons. I grabbed the pack and ran. Some children hollered at me but I cut through the woods. I hid the rifle in the brush and followed you to the hotel and tracked you from there,” she added as she downshifted and braked at a downtown red light.
Paul grimaced and turned away. “Rostov. That was the other Russian at the lab?”
Natasha nodded. “Igor Rostov.”
“And then you followed Ginter to Mexico City?” he asked.
Natasha took her eyes off the intersection and turned to deVere.
“I know nothing about Mexico City,” she said.
“Then how did you know Ginter came to Dallas?”
The light turned green and Natasha started forward at a normal speed.
“I didn’t,” she said, keeping her eyes on the road. “I came to Dallas on my own. Although I should have figured that Ginter would develop a plan to stop Oswald. He’s been fixated on him and Guevara from the beginning.”
Natasha slowly maneuvered the Nash out of the city. An occasional police siren wailed in the distance. He thought better than to ask where they were heading.
“Why did you come to Dallas?” he asked.
“For the same reason as Ginter. But with a different intent. Rostov told me what day he’d be arriving in Boston. I knew what wormhole would be open that day. The first thing Rostov would do would be to hack into Professor Hutch’s home computer. Remember, I am actually qualified for my internship.” She laughed again.
“This was Kennedy’s last top down motorcade before November 24,” she said. “This last chance to get him. Your original plan would never have worked. Professor Hutch has the brains but you needed Ginter. Ginter has the military training but not the historical perspective. I should have figured he’d go for Oswald, though,” she added thoughtfully.
“How did you find Ginter in Dallas?”
“Purely by chance.” Natasha guided the Nash onto a highway and shifted the car into fourth gear. She swung into the outer lane and accelerated quickly, heading north.
“I needed a cover in Dallas, so I contacted the Russian community to tell them I had defected and my husband had died and I was alone. That’s how I found out about Oswald. I recognized the name of course, but knew he was supposed to be in Cuba. When I heard that he wasn’t, I figured that Ginter was involved. What I didn’t understand is why he just didn’t kill Oswald outright.”
“Did you know what was planned?”
“Not until I smoked him out.”
“What?”
“Smoked him out. I mentioned to the Russians that Oswald was supposed to be in Cuba hoping that would get back to Ginter. I also mentioned something about President John Lindsay and everyone looked at me and I made a big deal out of it hoping that some of that would also get back to Oswald and then to Ginter. And I guess something did. They met and I tailed Oswald to their meeting and then tailed Ginter back to his apartment.”
“Lewis thought it was your Igor fellow.”
“He did?”
“Oswald only mentioned a Russian émigré. And the detail about Cuba.”
“And Ginter assumed it was a male?” Natasha scoffed. “Of course. Sexist pig.”
The pair traveled in silence, past the suburbs, and north through the Texas fall. DeVere would have turned on the car radio, but the Nash didn’t have one.
He turned to Natasha. “Are you sure?”
She nodded glumly. “In the morning we will get a newspaper but I am quite sure. That was my training at Valdavosk. Sniper. I had a clear shot. Right front head shot. I saw you coming but knew I had time.”
“What will happen to Oswald now?”
Natasha shrugged. “What was he supposed to do?”
“Miss. The gun was supposed to blow up.”
Natasha laughed derisively. “And blame it on the Soviets because Oswald had once been there? Stupid plan. What did Ginter do, rig the cartridges?”
“Something like that.”
Natasha shook her head. “I would think in a day or two he’ll get arrested. Or maybe shot during arrest. Three days at most and they’ll have him behind bars.”
“Won’t they know that Kennedy was shot from the front?”
Natasha shrugged again. “So maybe Oswald had an accomplice. A second shooter who never got caught. So what? Nineteen sixty-three forensics are not so good. Maybe they’ll think that it was a shot from the rear.”
“There was a camera,” deVere said.
“What?” Natasha twisted toward him. “Where?”
“In the front of the building. I saw it. Some guy with one of those old non-video things.”
“Sixteen millimeter?”