The first call the Director received was from Elliott, who informed him that the recent activities of Senators Dexter and Harrison revealed nothing new about the situation — not that the anonymous man knew exactly what the situation was. The Director grumbled to himself, finished his egg — sunny-side up — and read the Post’s description of the demonic weather that had assailed Washington during the night. He glanced out of the window at the day, now clear and dry. A perfect day for an assassination, he thought. The bright day that brings forth the adder. How late could he leave it before letting everyone know everything? The President was scheduled to leave the White House at 10:00 A.M. The Director would have to brief the head of the Secret Service, H. Stuart Knight, long before then and, if necessary, the President at least one hour before that. To hell with it, he would leave it to the last minute and make a full explanation afterward. He was willing to risk his career to catch this pernicious Senator red-handed. But risking the President’s life...
He drove to the Bureau soon after 6:00. He wanted to be there a full two hours before Andrews to study all the reports he had ordered the evening before. Not many of his senior aides would have had much sleep last night, though they were probably still wondering why. They would know soon enough. His deputy Associate Director for Investigation, his Assistant Director for Planning and Evaluation, and the head of the Criminal Section of that division would help him decide if he should go ahead or cancel. His Ford sedan slid down the ramp to the underground parking lot and his reserved parking place.
Elliott was there to meet him at the elevator — he was always there, never late. He’s not human, he’ll have to go, thought the Director, if I don’t have to go first. He suddenly realized that he could be handing his resignation in to the President that night. Which President? He put it out of his mind — that would all take care of itself in its own time, he must now take care of the next five hours.
Elliott had nothing useful to say. Dexter and Harrison had both received and made phone calls during the night and early morning, but nothing incriminating had been picked up. No other information was forthcoming. The Director asked where the two senators were at that moment.
“Both eating breakfast at their homes. Dexter in Kensington, Harrison in Alexandria. Six agents have been watching them since five o’clock this morning and have been detailed to follow them all day.”
“Good. Report back to me immediately if anything unusual happens.”
“Of course, sir.”
The fingerprint man was next. When he arrived, the Director first apologized for keeping him up all night, though the man’s face and eyes looked more alight and alive than his own had been in the shaving mirror that morning.
Five feet four inches tall, slight and rather pale, Daniel Sommerton began his report. He was like a child with a toy. For him, working with prints had always been a passion as well as a job. The Director remained seated while Sommerton stood. If the Director had stood, he would not have been head and shoulders above him, but head, shoulders, and chest above him.
“We have found seventeen different fingers, and three different thumbs, Director,” he said gleefully. “We’re putting them through the Ninhydrin rather than the iodine-fume process, since we were unable to do them one at a time for technical reasons that I won’t bother you with.”
He waved his arm imperiously to imply that he would not waste a scientific explanation on the Director, who would have been the first to acknowledge such a pointless exercise.
“We think there are two more prints we might identify,” Sommerton continued, “and we will have a readout for you on all twenty-two of them within two, at the most three hours.”
The Director glanced at his watch — already 6:45.
“Well done. That won’t be a minute too soon. Get me the results — even if they are negative — as quickly as possible, and please thank all of your staff for working through the night.”
The fingerprint expert left the Director, anxious to return to his seventeen fingers, three thumbs and two unidentified marks. The Director pressed a button and asked Mrs. McGregor to send in the Assistant Director for Planning and Evaluation.
Two minutes later, Walter Williams was standing in front of him.
Five feet eleven, fair with a thin pallid face, dominated by a magnificent high-domed forehead, lined with amusement not grief, Williams was known in the Bureau either as the Brain or W.W. His primary responsibility was to head the Bureau’s think tank of six lesser but still impressive brains. The Director often confronted him with hypothetical situations to which W.W. would later provide an answer which often proved, in retrospect, to be the right one. The Director placed great faith in his judgment, but he could not take any risks today. W.W. had better come up with a convincing answer to his hypothetical question of last night or his next call would be to the President.
“Good morning, Director.”
“Good morning, W.W. What is your decision concerning my little problem?”
“Most interesting, Director... I feel, to be fair, the answer is simple, even when we look at the problem from every angle.”
For the first time that morning a trace of a smile appeared on the Director’s face.
“Assuming I haven’t misunderstood you, Director.”
The Director’s smile broadened slightly; W.W. neither missed nor misunderstood anything, and was so formal that he didn’t address the Director even in private as Halt. W.W. continued, his eyebrows moving up and down like the Dow-Jones index in an election year:
“You asked me to assume that the President would be leaving the White House at X hundred hours and then traveling by car to the Capitol. That would take her six minutes. I’m assuming her car is bullet-proof and well covered by the Secret Service. Under these conditions would it be possible to assassinate her. The answer is, it’s possible but almost impossible, Director. Nevertheless, following the hypothesis through to its logical conclusion, the assassination team could use three methods: (a) explosives; (b) a handgun at close range; (c) a rifle.”
W.W. always sounded like a textbook. “The bomb can be thrown at any point on the route, but it is never used by professionals, because professionals are paid for results, not attempts. If you study bombs as a method of removing a President, you will find there hasn’t been a successful one yet, despite the fact that we have had four Presidents assassinated in office. Bombs inevitably end up killing innocent people and quite often the perpetrator of the crime as well. For that reason, since you have implied that the people involved would be professionals, I feel they must rely on the handgun or the rifle. Now the short-range gun, Director, is not a possible weapon on the route itself because it is unlikely that a pro would approach the President and shoot him at close range, thereby risking his own life. It would take an elephant gun or an anti-tank gun to pierce the President’s limousine, and you can’t carry those around in the middle of Washington without a permit.”
With W.W., the Director could never be sure if it were meant to be a joke or just another fact. The eyebrows were still moving up and down, a sure signal not to interrupt him with foolish questions.