What was wrong with these people? Had they no respect for this leader? Were his words so lifeless and hollow? Hitler had brought the house down at the end of every sentence.
Thompson’s nerves were on edge. It had taken all of his powers of persuasion to get the Secret Service to allow him to take the seat he had chosen directly to the side of the rostrum. His discomfort level had risen as the group entered.
He had long trusted his sixth sense and the agitation it generated. At times, he had attributed it to supersensory perception, but only after the fact, when its danger signals had been validated. When it was not accurate, he dismissed the feeling as a kind of false positive, meaning that the danger had passed on its own, without his intervention.
As his eyes surveyed the gymnasium, something had caught his attention, but so briefly, he could not trust it as valid information. At first, he dismissed it as merely a manifestation of his paranoia. A glint, a tiny movement emanating from the opening near the scoreboard had arrested his interest, but only for a mini-second.
Yet the more he fixated on the area, the more he was troubled by what he had imagined he had seen. Earlier, he had checked the entrances to both scoreboards. One had been inaccessible. The other was locked, secured by a chain. Had he missed something?
He kept his eyes glued to the spot, concentrating his gaze, frustrated by the limitations of sight, wishing he had a pair of binoculars.
Churchill’s words set off a modest round of scattered applause. At that moment, he saw the glint of what he had only imagined before. His mind would not allow further speculation. He had to act, see for himself.
Rising from his seat, he moved quickly off the platform. People looked at him with raised eyebrows. The ever-alert Secret Service people look puzzled. He offered a smile to reassure them that nothing was amiss, hoping he was suggesting a common personal emergency.
As soon as he had moved through the boys’ locker room entrance, he went swiftly to the chained door behind the bank of lockers. Grabbing the chain, he pulled hard, expecting resistance. Unanticipated, the metal loop slipped out effortlessly, the chain dropping to the floor. In a split second, the ruse became clear.
Cautiously, he opened the door and moved up the metal staircase. From the gym floor, he heard fragments of Churchill’s voice… the words, “their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.”
The applause began like a rolling clap of thunder. He drew his pistol and moved up the steps.
The applause swelled. Miller aimed, his finger on the trigger. Then suddenly, a clatter behind him disrupted his concentration, and he turned to see dark movement behind him. He quickly shifted the position of the rifle to the danger coming from behind him. A man was ascending the steps. He shifted the position of the rifle and aimed it squarely at the man climbing toward him.
In the semidarkness, he could make out the man’s features, recognizing him at once as the man who had been looking upward from the platform.
“Stop,” he said, his voice masked by the applause.
In the shifting of his position, he had been forced to put pressure on his bad ankle. A stab of pain shot through him, but he retained enough of a grip on the rifle to continue to aim it at the intruder’s midsection. Then he saw the pistol in the man’s hand.
“The pistol,” he hissed. “Drop it.”
He heard the sharp sound of the pistol as it clattered down the stairs.
Thompson froze, forcing calmness, looking upward. He was no more than ten steps from the person and was shocked to see that it was a woman. The woman was youngish, obviously determined, not panicked, wary, her expression pained but not by anguish. She was wearing white. The barrel of the rifle, he noted, was unsteady, and the woman’s balance seemed precarious. In the background, he continued to hear Churchill’s resonant voice, like a clarion in the wilderness, the only sound emanating from the gym.
His mind quickly assessed the situation, the reality of the assassin’s predicament and his own, the sense of waiting, both of them, ears cocked, listening for the obliterating sound of mass applause.
Thompson stared at the woman and moved slowly upward one step, then another.
“Stop,” the woman ordered. “I’ll shoot.”
A man’s voice! Thompson instantly understood the plan, the escape route, the disguise, the medical team below, and the exit to the rear. This was someone who wanted to preserve his life, had planned carefully.
“Go on then,” Thompson said, taking another step.
“I will,” the man threatened.
“Not yet,” Thompson said, rising again to the next level.
As he moved, Thompson listened to Churchill’s words, calculating the moment when the applause might break out again, his muscles taut, ready to spring and, if necessary, take the bullet, forcing the man off-balance, inhibiting his positioning. That was his hope. He had read the speech and heard it rehearsed, knowing by the rise and fall of Churchill’s cadence when applause was to be expected.
“Who sent you?” Thompson asked, moving upward yet another step.
“None of your fucking business, Jew.”
Thompson smiled at what seemed like the obvious clue, perhaps too obvious.
Disgruntled Nazi, he thought.
“It’s over, lad. You’ve lost.”
“We’ve just begun,” said the man with the gun, with obviously false bravado.
His accent struck Thompson as American.
Keeping his eyes on the barrel of the rifle, Thompson took another step.
“One more and it’s over,” the man with the gun said.
“I doubt that,” Thompson said, still separated by two steps.
He searched for the man’s eyes. They stared back at him with cold contempt.
Suddenly, Thompson stiffened and raised his arm.
“Heil Hitler!”
The response was immediate, a reflex. The man raised his arm, loosening his grip on the rifle. At that moment, Thompson heard the words, “a special relationship between the British Commonwealth and Empire and the United States.”
Thompson heard the swell begin and moved upwards swiftly, elbow raised, as he struck out with his left hand against the barrel, the grip weakened, too late to prevent the discharge. He heard the sharp popping sound of the shot, then felt a searing pain in his upper arm. For a moment, he was thrown back but managed to stop his downward motion by grabbing the handrail, which bent under him but held his body weight.
Thinking that the bullet had found its mark in the intruder, Miller had turned quickly to point the barrel toward the man on the rostrum. There seemed a momentary restlessness in the audience, which appeared to have quickly dismissed the popping sound, the report muffled by the downward direction of the bullet into the stairwell. Churchill did not miss a beat in his speech and the audience settled. But before Miller could aim, a hand had grasped his bad leg and pulled on it. The pain seemed to explode in his head. The man grasped the barrel of the rifle and wrestled it forward. Miller struggled to retain it but could not hold his position on the stairway, and he began to topple. The rifle slipped out of his hands. Instinctively, he reached for his pistol, but strong hands had pinned his arms.
He kicked himself free with his uninjured leg taking the bulk of the pressure. The man began to fall, slipping partway down the winding staircase. Miller tried to regain his balance but his leg collapsed under him, and his downward motion continued until the body of the man who held fast to the handrail halted it abruptly.