"How old was Oswald when he got it?"
"Maybe twenty-three, twenty-four, something like that," Win said.
They went back to the corpse that resembled an older Lee Harvey Oswald.
"Add thirty years and you get a fifty-five-year-old guy."
"This guy looks about that."
"Can't be Oswald."
"Looks just like him. Right down to that simpering-idiot grin of his."
Win Workman looked from the face of the dead man to the wallet he was opening in his hands. He had brought it out of his pocket woodenly, as if afraid of what it would reveal.
"The driver's license says he's Alek James Hidell," he said.
A collective sigh of relief began to slip out of open mouths. Then someone snapped his fingers. It was so loud it might have been a gunshot.
"What is it?" Win asked angrily.
"Alek Hidell. That was one of the aliases."
"What alias?"
"Oswald's."
They rushed back to the body of the other dead man.
He carried his wallet in his back hip pocket. They could feel it, but they couldn't get at it without turning the body over.
"Better leave it," Workman said. "This is too much for me. "
"Man, this can't get any worse," an agent muttered.
But it did. Almost at once.
An agent reported, "I found the shooter's weapon."
"Stay there. We'll be right up."
WORKMAN ALONE stepped out onto the Science Center roof so as not to disturb evidence.
He walked over to the agent who was half kneeling over the weapon. It was a bolt-action clunker with a makeshift strap.
"Damn. That's an old one," Workman said, crouching over the rifle.
"Look at the barrel."
"What about it?"
"Look at the name of the make stamped on the barrel."
Workman twisted his head around until he could read it.
"Man-"
"Mannlicher-Carcano," the other agent finished.
Win Workman said, "Get out of here!"
"That was what it said. I swear."
That was what it said: Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5 Cal. Made in Italy.
"Mannlicher-Carcano was the rifle Oswald used in Dallas," Workman said dully. "If it was Oswald-"
"What do you mean?" the other agent asked.
"We got the shooter. Add thirty years, and you have the spitting image of Lee Harvey Oswald."
"There's something else," the other agent said. "Look at this spent shell casing."
"What about it?"
"There's something scratched in the metal."
"What?"
"Two letters. Looks like RX"
"RX?"
"Yeah. RX."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
Then, as if it couldn't get any worse, an agent stuck his head out of the greenhouse door leading to the roof and said, "There's a woman demanding to know about the cover-up."
"What cover-up?"
"She says she's Pepsie Dobbins."
"Throw her nosy ass out of here!" Win Workman shouted. "And seal this entire building. This is a Federal crime scene, goddamn it."
Chapter 8
At the Furioso International Airport, Remo booked the next flight to Washington and then found a pay phone.
He dialed his home number in Massachusetts.
The line rang three times. Remo hung up, rang it another three times and hung up again. On the fourth ring of his third try, the Master of Sinanju came on the line.
"Remo?" a querulously squeaky voice said.
"Bad news, Chiun. The President was assassinated."
"The Fat Prince? The gluttonous one?"
"Yeah. Him."
"Did you do this deed?" the squeaky voice asked.
"Of course not."
"Then he was not assassinated. He was murdered. Only you and I are capable of work worthy of the name."
"Cut the self-congratulatory crap. A sniper took him out."
"Good."
"What do you mean, 'good'?"
"Emperor Smith, whom we serve in secret, will know by the crude use of a boom stick that neither you nor I were sunlighting."
"For the thousandth freaking time, it's 'moonlighting' and it happened in Boston, not three miles from where we live."
"Remo! This is not true."
"It's true."
"Why was I not informed that the puppet President was in this province?"
"Smith will want to know why you didn't stop the killer."
"I knew nothing of any President or his killer," Chiun squeaked plaintively.
"You know that and I know that. But the President was killed on Smith's watch, which is your watch."
"Your watch, too."
"I don't have a watch anymore. I'm just tying up loose ends, remember?"
"We will blame the unfortunate death of the puppet on your recalcitrance," Chiun crowed.
"The hell you will. Listen, I'm on my way to Washington to protect the new President."
"There is a new President?"
"The Vice President."
"This country is doomed."
"It will be if there's a conspiracy. I'm going to watch over the Vice President. I could use a hand."
"If there is a conspiracy, my place is at the side of the rightful emperor, Harold the Mad."
"Look, no one knows about Smith," Remo shouted.
"Are you calling from an airport?"
"Yes, what does that have to do with anything?"
"Because an airport is a public place and you are shouting your emperor's secrets to any skulking spy who happens by."
Remo switched ears and whispered urgently into the mouthpiece. "I'm officially requesting your presence. Okay?"
"I will consider your request-once I have it in writing," said Chiun thinly. "Until then, my place is at Smith's side."
And the line went dead.
Remo slammed the phone down, breaking the plastic handle. He went to the next phone in line and dialed Smith at Folcroft.
"Smitty, I just talked to Chiun. He won't join me in Washington."
"Why not?"
"I made the mistake of whispering the word 'conspiracy,' and he thinks he should be watchdogging you."
"I will call him. Where are you?"
"Furioso International Airport. My flight leaves in ten minutes."
"I expected you in Washington by now."
"I had to wade through miles of kudzu before I found a road with cars on it. The first dozen cars wouldn't stop for me, but I had a lucky break."
"Yes?"
"Someone stole my rental car and happened to drive by."
"He stopped?"
"No. I ran after the car and pulled him out from behind the wheel while he was doing seventy."
"I assume there were no witnesses to this."
"A Greyhound bus happened by in the opposite lane, and the car thief bounced under the wheels, if that's what you mean."
"Good. Keep me informed."
Smith hung up.
Remo found a seat in the waiting area. Other passengers were standing around glued to TV monitors as the networks continued their special reports.
The footage of the death shot was shown a total of eighteen times in nearly as many minutes. Remo, who had dispensed death to the deserving countless times in a long career, turned away from the screen in disgust.
The hushed conversation of waiting passengers came to his ears, as much as he tried to block it out.
"Another assassination. When will it stop?"
"I remember when Kennedy was killed like it was yesterday."
"He was a good President, despite the stories that have come out."
"No, I meant Robert Kennedy."
"Oh. I thought you looked kinda young to remember Jack."
"There's nothing lower than an assassin."
A redheaded woman wearing glasses dropped her shoulder bag at Remo's feet and took the seat beside him. "Have they caught the man who did it yet?" she asked Remo, emboldened by the national tragedy to speak to a total stranger.
"Not that I heard."
"I can't believe we've lost another President."
Remo said nothing.
"The coward," the woman said bitterly.